Gentleman, give it to me straight, do you think the sky is falling?

[HandCracker]

i suggest everyone find a home game and a local casino like i have.

[BadgerPro]

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i suggest everyone find a home game and a local casino like i have.

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They refused to let me play in just my boxers there.

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They refused to let me play naked there.

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(Just because someone else would have.)

[Bond18]

Having started the thread I guess its my turn to give my full thoughts on the matter.

First of all I have difficulty believing there will never be a U.S. based online gaming industry. Casino owners aren’t stupid, they see the enormous profit potential online poker and gambling holds and I think with enough lobbying and time we will eventually see U.S. based poker site that will be legal and easy for all to play on. To me, it just seems like there’s to much money NOT to take advantage of the situation . This however, is probably years away given the current trend.

As far as land based events go, and pokers popularity in the culture, I really don’t think people should worry for a number of reasons.

1. Poker’s the only game in the world where anyone can play in the biggest and most important game. How many of us here have dreamed about playing in the superbowl/world series of baseball/nba championships etc etc. Everyone in their lifetime, would probably like a chance to compete at the highest level of something, and outside poker I don’t know what other chance you, I, or anyone is going to have at that sort of “fantasy”.
2. The game has enormous appeal to the young. How many people at 14-18 didn’t necessarily have all that much to do on a Friday/Saturday night? The games social, competitive, and anyone can play so there should pretty much always be a new group of young players picking up the game.
3. Live events are springing up everywhere. Pretty much any state with a casino now has its own poker series of some kind, probably numerous.


People have mentioned the growing international markets, specifically Europe and Asia. I can’t say much for Europe, obviously an expanding EPT is a very good sign, but I can talk about poker In Asia from experience.

The game is CLEARLY growing there as more and more live events have popped up that havn’t really hit the US players radar yet.

There was a Pan-Asian event hosted by TonyGpoker in Manilla, an Asian Poker Tour event hosted by Betfair in Singapore, and there is an upcoming Asian poker classic in Goa India. I attended the Singapore event, and although online poker is currently illegal in Singapore perhaps 25% of the main event field was in fact local.

That a country like India is getting involved is another good sign, bear in mind that India/China/Japan/Korea/South East Asia holds about half the worlds population, many of which where gambling is already highly popular in the culture but poker has yet to really take hold as the next popular game.

Macau (an island off the coast of China that China reprocessed in 1999 from the Portugease) is the fastest growing gambling center in the world with many of the large Las Vegas developers sinking money into construction of world class casinos. Its only a matter of time before these casinos all get poker rooms and the game takes off, though Chinas strict internet censorship could be an issue in the future. For example here in China I can’t access Wikipedia, and anyone found involved with attempting to start their own online gambling site is given enormous prison terms.

Personally, I don’t think the sky has fallen quite yet, and for the time being its certainly lower. However, I think in the future its very possible that we’ll look back at this stage in the industry and think “[censored], we got all worked up over nothing.”

Here’s hoping.

[MasterE569]

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I don't think this is true. I think lots of fish follow the poker world really closely, but just don't really get how to play because they're not able to separate the really bad poker advice from the really good ones. Think about how common it is for a fish to reference thepokerdb or sharkscope during a Stars tourney.

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I spent a ton of time explaining to my friends and co-workers months after the supposed ban that I could still play poker abd that they could too. The reason fish know what pokerdb is and such is the same reason they know about the ban. The info becomes main stream and take things for face value. Sure you know about pokerdb, but do you know how to use it and how to process said info. Tons of users do not. With this being said the best way for online poker industry to fight this ban is with aggresive marketing to the fish to inform them "hey you can still play here and here is how you get your money on"

[uclabruinz]

A couple thoughts:

1. For the near-term, grinding online playing tight-solid poker to good to great profits is over at any game, including MTTs, SNGs, and mid-stakes cash. The games have gotten too tough.

2. More advanced players good at playing situations and shifting gears have less to worry about, although I personally know of only a handful of such players who can do so effectively while 8-tabling.

3. The "rush" of new money is indeed over. The enormous volume of new/bad players with decent amounts to spend have done so, and learned they're not good or poker is harder then they thought. I'm not saying such players don't exist or won't continue to come, but it was this huge "boom" of them that made tight-solid poker so profitable. Instead of 7 other bad players waiting to pay off your big hands at a table, you are now seeing a lot less.

4. New/bad players who are going to continue to play are mostly taking advantage of the enormous amount of information on how to play halfway decent poker, and are not nearly as bad as the huge amounts that fed the profits of the last few years.

5. Live poker will continue to be very profitable and very accessible, but for the online tight/solid grinder it is a tough transition going from 8-tabling to 1-tabling live, and there are adjustments to be made in stakes/bankroll as well.

6. I am really, really glad I did not give into multiple impulses I had halfway through last year to at least temporarily close my law practice and take up poker full-time. I do not envy those of you who dropped out of college to grind out an online poker living. I find it highly doubtful then more then say 5% of you are ready to make the transitions necessary to continue making a living at this game.

[uclabruinz]

A few more thoughts:

7. The government is f-in serious. Do not underestimate this. Make no mistake, the existence of anti-gambling lesiglation is due to financial pressures, or in other words legal bribery. But the DOJ doesn't care about stuff like that, if the government says it is illegal they will pursue with vigor, and one only need to look at the gambling arrests to see this is true.

8. The effect of Neteller cannot be overstated. I have read all the excuses for why it's no big deal, and find none of them persuasive. The freezing of online funds has a major chilling effect on your average person, particularly combined with the legislation. I think back to when I was a fish making my first deposit, and my uneasiness that I might be doing something illegal, and now think about people doing that in the current environment.

9. Those of you with your heads in the sand better pull it out and start looking around. Maybe online poker can still be profitable enough for some of you to make a living, we'll see. But if you don't have "Plan B" you better start figuring it out. If you think "everything will be fine" you are likely going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise when you run worse then you ever thought was possible and find yourself scrambling to figure out what do with your life while the bills are piling up.

[BadgerPro]

and you beat me to it... damn you Paul!!!

[Jurollo]

Well written Paul.

[Gildwulf]

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Something I just thought of...recently I've seen at Stars peak times over 100k people logged in to the servers. I can't remember ever seeing this before the gambling bill. So there are still lots of people playing, some good, some bad, but there are still people. If you want to keep winning, get better.

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these numbers include play money tables

[registrar]

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7. The government is f-in serious. Do not underestimate this.

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I wrote something to this effect yesterday and then deleted it because I did not feel qualified as a European to comment. But this would be my main worry in your shoes. The fact is that, historically and universally, gambling is considered to be a vice and one that has to be restricted, like alcohol, dugs and prostitution. There are odd times when, for whatever reason, this attitude has been relaxed but if the State has decided to act, online poker will be restricted. Serious gamblers will, as always, be able to pursue their careers and serious fish, as always, will be able to give them money but the State will continue to intervene to ensure that the average Joe will be deterred.

Here in the UK, the State is pursuing a novel approach to the issue. This will, I feel, be entirely disasterous. The consequences of deregulating the availability of gambling, alcohol, drugs, extra-marital sex and credit must surely, surely be a very bad idea. Nice for me, because I have enjoyed all of them, but very bad for socity as a whole.

It just has to be this way guys. For some of you, poker is a game of skill. For the vast majority who have fed this boom, it is a sad and damaging addiction that it would be morally reprobate of the State to indulge. There is nothing more disgusting than the current Labour govt. going out of it's way to encourage poker firms to the UK so they can reap tax dividends it doesn't make electoral sense to levy on the public at large.

This sermon was somewhat off-topic. Cliff notes: when the US Govt. decides something is a very bad thing, they are generally pretty exuberant in stamping it out. This is only the beginning of their attack on online poker. If attacking the means of money transferral doesn't have the desired effect, they will enact further legislation.