Where Will Poker Be in 2020?

When a new decade starts there are always the projection articles written on “where will we be in ten years time” Most of the time these projections give technological advancement far more credit than it deserves (think 2015 in Back to the Future II with flying cars) so I will try and be realistic in my guesswork.

Poker is at an interesting point in its development. We have had a massive poker boom this decade starting around 2003 and then a decline in player numbers after a global recession and some legal challenges to online poker cost the community most of the US playing market.

The European Poker Tour is becoming one of the best tours in the world thanks to their strategic decision to host the tours poker events in some of the most beautiful cities in Europe which attracts many players not only for the poker but for the tourism and culture. Live poker tournaments will continue to get more participants due to poker players becoming frustrated by online pokers difficulty and seek their big score at live poker events.

We cannot expect there to be another poker boom like there was in 2003 because poker is already all over the televisions with shows available for viewing everyday. In 2003 poker on TV with hole card cameras was a new phenomenon. Most people did not even know about poker so their introduction to the game was timed identically to other people discovering it through television also. What could have been a steady flow over time happened in a very short time period. When we consider that interest in online poker has dipped, perhaps this is just things moving along at the right pace. Unfortunately chat shows and newspapers do not interview poker players often especially in the UK, so initiating another boom through mainstream media is hard to achieve.

In reading poker forum posts they share the belief that online poker games are now much harder. This makes it very difficult for new players to break through into consistent profit. Of course there will be some players that wrongly believe they are just unlucky and continue to play and lose but many players learn pretty quickly that they must improve or admit they cannot win and quit. Read poker articles from circa 2005 and you will see that they say “some bad players have good luck and show wins over the medium term and that keeps them playing…” You do not read such statements now as bad players get run over in the tougher games and there is not much winning from a bad player in anything more than the short term.

The Asian poker market will see an increase as there is a higher population in that region of the world who love to gamble. Many Asian gamblers prefer the live scene but the idea of gambling and being lucky is entwined into their culture making poker a lucrative potential market. A poker boom in that area of the world could send poker into another golden age within the next few years.

Online poker needs to attract plenty of new players in order to grow. Hopefully the use of more technology as broadband gets faster and the capabilities of the Internet improves this will allow the poker rooms to improve their poker software and offer a top of the range experience of online poker. PKR have shown the way forward with their 3D poker games, but the tiled graphics that are employed by the other sites are held together like a cartel of poker software. Perhaps one site needs to branch out and redefine online pokers graphical representation. It will be interesting to see what poker room or rooms do this.

Participating in poker in the next ten years should see the game continue to grow. How it grows remains to be seen but after seven years in mainstream culture you would expect there is much more to come from the game of poker as it develops in time.

By Malcolm Clarke

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