Texas Hold'em exploded in 2005-2006. Is it dead now? What happened since?

[RickAversion]

I played a bunch of times with friends as the poker craze swept in 2005-2006. Then, in my group, everyone stopped playing. It was just a passing fad in my area. It almost seems so retro to even mention it. "It's so 2005". We even went to Vegas and played in a $50 tournament back then.

Further, I know online poker was dealt a death blow in 2011 with the fed banning.

What is the status now? Is Hold'em a lot less popular than it was in 2005? Was there a peak? Is it 50% as popular as it was back then?

Has the phone App era brought a resurgence to Hold'em? This is how I got started playing again in 2012, and it's been real fun. And, I am better now than I ever was before, playing 1000's of hands on my phone instead of a slow night with live people.

 

[RickAversion]

Anyone?

 

[Tropwen]

I quite disagree every year more and more people are buying in to wsop events even with black Friday there's new poker rooms popping up every day it seams. 2005 was just the explosive start and I haven't seen it slow down at all, just last year they had a 1,000,000 buy in event biggest tournament ever with over 45million in payouts and poker is making people millionaires all the time definitely wouldn't say its slowing or even stopped at all

 

[PLAYINBIG]

Yeah I think Texas Holdem is gonna be here for awhile.I play Omaha,Stud,5card draw & keep coming back to Texas Holdem.Nothing is more exciting to me than NL texas holdem.

 

[triplesyxx]

hold em isnt a fad brother, its here to stay. tons of people still play. coverage on mainstream media is up and its hot, where theres money, theres people tryin to get that money

 

[caintain]

some people play poker for fun some live it... your group was just playing for fun it seems if everyone just stopped that or the recession and they're all broke or feel the need to do other things with their money....i've been playing since 06 paused for about a year since but now i take it serious i want to do it for a living. to get good you have to take quite a few @55 kickings some people get fed up and quit. poker isn't dead (like hip hop) its still growing and their will be another boom soon as its legalized in more states.

 

[Cooking]

I don't think NLH is a lot less popular than it was before, I think it stays pretty much the same as it was before. For me, what is dying is the online poker..

 

[rawone]

I think it's like anything that trends and burns brightly. It comes and it goes for some people, and remains consistent for the rest of us.

Online poker certainly drove a "fad", it was one of the first things online outside of pr0n and piracy that drove online usage. Remember, there was plenty of online poker a long time before there was a facebook, twitter, or that other stuff. That drive online put a lot of money on the table, so to speak, and those online companies such as PP took that online part and used it as a publicity shove behind the WPT and such, getting it in the public's eye.

However, everything that goes up must go down, right? With the convoluted legal situation in the US, as well as many credit card companies worldwide refusing to be part of payment processing for poker, the flame has turned down in the public's mind. On US TV, many of the poker related shows that were on disappeared after Black Friday, such as Poker After Dark. That change in exposure in the US market of course changes things for the casual player. The inability for US players to get to play online (without working on it) means that many of them just stopped. When the online part stops, it tends to drag into a loss of home games as they get onto some other trend and pattern.

Funny enough, I am just old enough to have seen people dragged through the same deal in 9 ball pool. That's another situation where TV exposure and a few other things came together for a short period of time to really drive an industry, which all but fell off the map afterwards (unlike billards, different situation).

What is good is that the real poker players in the US, the people with real interest and real time to put into are still there. There are more and more legal casinos to visit that offer NLH as their main poker game, and more and more people really playing live, in person, and enjoying it.

If the US manages to fix the legal environment, you can expect another upswing as online poker will get another chance (just like the skateboard!) to fly in the public's eye.

 

[RickAversion]

I don't think NLH is a lot less popular than it was before, I think it stays pretty much the same as it was before. For me, what is dying is the online poker..

Why do you think online poker is dying?
In the USA, it's still illegal to play for money online, right?
Wait, I hear about people playing for money online.
How does this work now? They are just foreign based websites?

 

[RickAversion]

What is good is that the real poker players in the US, the people with real interest and real time to put into are still there. There are more and more legal casinos to visit that offer NLH as their main poker game, and more and more people really playing live, in person, and enjoying it.

.

It seems like many states are legalizing gambling casinos, and this may provide a 2nd wind to poker, as people start to go to casinos that are all over the place, and not just once a year in Vegas or AC or some reservation.

 

[Rappyness]

Definitely here to stay and I just love Texas Holdem more than any card game! Not to mention you win money while enjoying the game itself.

 

[mjg1986]

I hate that the big sites went away for us USA players! also when i started we could use neteller and that was so nice! I really wish the online play was like it used to be!

 

[pfb8888]

ah neteller...the real reason online poker is dead for usa....

what could be wrong with having a global bank account in a global economy?
terrorists laundering money??

- wrong ! usa banks getting knocked out of the loop ....by an internet bank

 

[RickAversion]

Seems like poker revenues peaked in 2006.


From 2003-06, Nevada poker saw an unprecedented boom, with revenues nearly tripling. From roughly the summer of 2006 to the summer
of 2007, revenues then stabilized, showing continued small increases. Following a major jump in June 2007 (coinciding with an earlier start for
the world series of poker), revenues then declined steadily. Since July 2007, poker revenues have increased year-to-year only five months out of
forty-three.

In general, poker has, since 2006, become steadily less profitable for Nevada casinos. The win per table has fallen dramatically to early 1990s
levels. The large number of tables, however, indicates that it is still an amenity that many choose to provide, though it does not produce
significant revenues on its own.

http://gaming.unlv.edu/reports/nv_poker2004_2011.pdf

 

[OzExorcist]

What happened was that poker boomed in the mid-naughties on the back of the WPT being on TV and Chris Moneymaker winning the WSOP.

For a lot of people though it was just a trend - like the swing music revival during the 90s. People jumped on board for a little while, got bored of it and moved on. It's the same way with all trends and fads. Poker, bluntly, isn't cool any more.

There were a number of players who got into poker during the boom and then stayed around though (myself included, along with many of you too I'm sure). So as a result the game is now much bigger than it was pre-boom, but it's not as big as it was at the height of the boom.

WSOP Main Event attendances tell the story as well as anything else: attendances are well up these days on pre-boom numbers, but they're never even close to reaching the 8,773 that played in 2006.

 

[AlfieAA]

Poker will never be dead, its the coolest thing on the planet and everyone loves cards

 

[RickAversion]

Yea, seems to have peaked in 2006.

 

[gregcopa]

Neteller. It is hard for a regular "guy" to move money these days.

 

[Indian Givah]

Seems like poker revenues peaked in 2006.


From 2003-06, Nevada poker saw an unprecedented boom, with revenues nearly tripling. From roughly the summer of 2006 to the summer
of 2007, revenues then stabilized, showing continued small increases. Following a major jump in June 2007 (coinciding with an earlier start for
the World Series of Poker), revenues then declined steadily. Since July 2007, poker revenues have increased year-to-year only five months out of
forty-three.

In general, poker has, since 2006, become steadily less profitable for Nevada casinos. The win per table has fallen dramatically to early 1990s
levels. The large number of tables, however, indicates that it is still an amenity that many choose to provide, though it does not produce
significant revenues on its own.

http://gaming.unlv.edu/reports/nv_poker2004_2011.pdf

maybe this in nevada. but more casinos have opened in other states, people realized that you dont have to travel to vegas to play poker, you can play from the seat of your home. especially after seeing that full tilt sponsored the WSOP for years (that's what got me into OLP.) i personally think that it's still a huge industry, and i think it is increasing, (post BF) but just not in vegas. i live in maine and they finally put tables in the "slots casino" we have. weekends you have to wait 2 hours just to sit at a table, and people travel 4 hours just to play a few hours at a table. I think that maybe the poker industry is more spread out. OLP has def decreased as of BF.

 

[valientone]

I think the only reason that its not booming like it was back in the day, is because fulltiltpoker , pokerstars, and few other big poker sites went down... The US government messed that up for everybody.. Its literally got me wanting to move out of the country.. just so i can play online poker on those sites.. These other sites are ok.. But I dont think it will ever boom like it used to, unless those sites come back for good..

 

[aa88wildbill]

But yeah we took a big hit when they shut down PS,FT,UB,AP but it's coming back! I figured it's going to take about three years, assuming the economy gets a little better.

 

[AlwaysPlanAhe]

The global recesision will have had a large impact on the entire ecology. Nobody has any money at the moment and there aren't any jobs, with USA's recent potential fiscal cliff it's all looking very bleak for johnny average. When lots of people had money (pre 2008 crash) there was plenty of dead money from fish being sucked up by microstakes/small stakes players which caused everyone to move up a level in the chain. Suddenly everyone's broke and with less fish at the very bottom of the food chain it effects everyone all the way to the top.

Ignoring the previous paragraph there's also the path of natural progression to take into account. When someone starts playing poker, 1 of 2 things happens. They either study, get good, learn more, get better and so on . Or they suck and lose money and eventually give up and stop playing. So gradually the entire poker pool becomes mostly full of players who know what they're doing.

Imo there wont be another boom like there was in 2004 because conditions were perfect. Internet globalisation was new and improving to the point connections were fast and reliable, it was 4 years before the recession so everyone had more money than ever and banks were happily lending out even more and Moneymaker had turned $40 into a squillion. The combination of these things created what happened 2004-2008 and that will never happen again.

There is hope for a new smaller boom but this is just a personal opinion. Asians love gaming and China will soon enter the foreign market as a dominant force whether face to face or over the internet. Right now gambling is illegal in mainland China but the Chinese really love to gamble. For those who don't know...the reason China are doing so well atm is because they artificially kept their currency low for years. When you trade abroad you exchange the foreign currency for your own and invest into your countries infrastructure like schools, police etc. China decided to buy debts in the country of origin that they had done business with meaning their money was making them even more money however the standard of living in China was really bad. They could produce goods at a fraction of the cost compared to the western world and they basically destroyed all foreign competition.

Now they're investing into infrastructure again and should they decide to legalise gambling, casinos will appear literally overnight. A country with so many millionaires and billionaires who love to gamble suddenly thrown into a world of legal casinos? There will be an asian boom. It will lead to an influx of new fishy Chinese internet players and by this point the global recession we're currently going through should have calmed down a bit so the tables will become fish filled again.

 

[Chronical23]

poker is a thing that once it inspires you and you've seen guys like chris moneymaker make millions on tv... anyone can do it and you will think about that throughout your life.

 

[ROOKMAN]

I think the only thing that has slowed poker down is the US government!!

 

[gregcopa]

I think the only thing that has slowed poker down is the US government!!

No doubt. If the USA had stayed out things would still be booming.