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“All in”! The Amazing Rise of Online Poker
Millions of people try their luck in online poker rooms around the world, in a game that is less and less about gambling
Gamblers have always been regarded as a special breed of people. One moment flirting with glory and the next with disaster, their way of life was both envied and frowned upon by those with ordinary lives.
Not surprisingly, gamblers have also claimed a special place in popular imagination and culture. The adventurous but sometimes tragic life of the gambler has been the subject of many novels and films.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler remains the classical diatribe on the subject and gets its added value by the fact that Dostoyevsky was a roulette addict himself, who wrote the book to pay back his gambling debts.
Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s personas in the Sting offer a more lighthearted look at the gambler’s life. A hand of poker is dealt in almost every western film, usually with an ace hidden up someone’s sleeve and a loaded gun waiting in the holster. James Bond casually wins a hand of Baccarat or Blackjack while flirting with some gorgeous female spy.
Famous gamblers had become legends in their time. Nick Dandolos or ‘Nick the Greek’, an ingenious poker player of the first half of the century, was seen in the company of the likes of Albert Einstein and Richard Feynnman (another Nobel prize winning physicist).
But at the same time, what gave the profession its lures was what made it forbidding for the average person. The risks, the tremendous ups and downs and the controversial company were part and parcel of the life of the professional gambler. Famously, even Nick the Greek died broke after having gone from rags to riches innumerous times in his career.
This is hardly the case anymore. An impressive increase in online gambling and particularly online poker has taken place during the last decade. Poker has left the casinos and the shady, bad lit backroom clubs with thugs guarding the doors.
People are now playing from their homes and offices in digital playrooms. At the same time, a new generation of poker superstars is changing our traditional outlook on professional gamblers.
The numbers speak for themselves. Online poker has been growing by leaps and bounds during the last decade. In 2010, online poker revenues were estimated to around $5bn. Compare that to the $80m revenues of 2001 and what you get is one of the fastest growing industries on the planet.
This is despite the fact that online poker is still illegal in the United States and has an uncertain legal standing in many other countries around the world. Online poker is legal in places such as Gibraltar, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom and that is where online poker powerhouses (such as pokerstars.com, 888.com, PartyGaming, Full Tilt Poker etc) choose to set up their headquarters.
This is not always a safe choice, however. A Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) last year resulted in the closing down of three poker.com companies’ offices in the States, the seizing of their bank accounts and the prosecution of eleven people.
But outside the United States the game is flourishing. What is more, with millions of amateurs playing poker online, the number of professionals is also increasing. More and more people have the opportunity to test their skills and try to earn a respectable amount of money online.
As a result, the new generation of professional gamblers is consisted of people who lead a not-so-extraordinary life, compared to other professionals. Like most freelancers, professional poker players spend some hours of the day in front of their laptops playing poker. And just as any other professional, they are also expected to make business trips to participate to large poker events around the world.
What has turned these professional poker players into stars is the same thing that has turned average people into professionals: the great interest shown by the public.
People want to know more about the game and are naturally eager to learn the tricks from the best. For this reason, special TV channels have been set up, where professional poker players are participating in televised ‘high stakes’ poker games which are broadcasted all over the world.
Commentaries include in depth analyses of poker hands where players explain on camera exactly what went through their mind when they made the decision to call or fold.
A look at YouTube is, as always, illuminative. Thousands of videos of poker hands are at display and the numbers of views and comments are indicative of the interest shown in the game. Social media, such as Facebook, offer online poker platforms –albeit not with real money.
With such a large industry supporting and sponsoring the game, it comes as no surprise that this new generation of poker stars is made up of businessmen rather than gamblers.
A large part of their income is covered by sponsorships, TV appearances and other entrepreneurial activities such as the launching of personal poker platforms or writing books on poker.
The days of Nick the Greek are long gone. Today, you hardly hear of any professional poker player having lost all of his or her fortune and trying to make it back to the top.
But what is it about online poker that makes it so attractive to students, housewives and businessmen alike?
First, it is easy and interactive. People play from their homes and offices and bet against each other instead of playing against a computer, which is usually considered mundane and dull.
Second, it is now practically everywhere. After its initial success, online poker has become an avalanche gathering more and more power as it grows.
Third, it is the game itself: a combination of luck, intellectual abilities, fraud, acting and power politics. As the famous Hungarian-American historian, John Lukacs put it:
“Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens”.
This is probably true of the stars themselves. With all the small fish crowding in online rooms to try their luck, it is easier for the big fish to earn money, relying in the fame they have acquired as masters of the game through their TV appearances, their actual experience and, of course, their larger bank account. In poker, as in life, money breeds money.
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Comments
perhaps the term 'of uncertain legal standing' which I use for other countries would be a better choice. Still, it seems many poker sites seem to believe that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 is posing a threat to their legality in the USA, and the FBI' s actions did much to encourage that belief, this April. I understand there is a lot of controversy on the issue and calling online poker 'illegal' is seen by some as taking sides. This was certainly not my purpose. Feel free to add your comments.
No it isn't Alexis. Get your facts straight, that requires all of 15 minutes of research.