How do you see the future of poker evolving? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead for the game? Will we ever see a global online poker room like we had pre black Friday? How will AI powered tools affect game play?
I had to go and check some data before answering this question. So, current world record for most people playing (not logged in - but playing) on an online site is held by
pokerstars with 307016 players in 2009.
www.guinnessworldrecords.com
Then our planet had around 6,8 billion people living on it. Now there is around 8,2 billion people living.
So, my assumption is that this record is going to be broken sooner or later. But the exponential growth rate in players which happened from 2003-2004 up to 2011 is unlikely to happen again.
I can see two challenges that are the biggest factors today. Legislation, which is preventing players playing online poker from bigger markets (such as USA) and use of various software by players. If some online poker room (such as GGPoker or Pokerstars) could guarantee that it is any software free from players side (so that he needs to make a decision with his own mind without any outside help) it would attract more players on it.
I know it is unlikely (players nowadays can use two separate computers - one on which they are playing online and the other one which is used for analysis only (and the data is only sent from logged computer to the other) but still possible. - now that I'm writing this it sounds more and more like an utopia
Anyway, If those two "obstacles" (legislation worldwide and software analysis freedom) gets out of the way at the same time that could bring more players at a faster rate than from period 2003, 04-2011.