I agree mostly, but one thing you didn't really take into account is that every day, more players are turning 18 and thus being able to play.

I did think of that, but chose not to include it in the article as it was insiginificant.

Take my example on Germany, with around 23m males between 18 and 40. Per year, you could roughly expect 1m new people joining that group, however, other will leave it and will be less likely to start playing poker to a degree (if they have not already started). Let's ignore the latter point and assume 10% of the 1m will play poker and deposit $600 on average (both these assumptions are very generous IMO).

This would only give 100k new players per year in Germany, roughly 1m players per year world-wide, which would only account for 1 extra month per year of poker liquidity.

Is there really much change in rake generated based on someone being 17.9 and 18 years old? I'd think that the fact that sites allow transfer abilities would make it similar to alcohol consumption- anyone who wants to partake on the day they are legally able would have of age friends allowing them access to these things before then.

After re-checking some numbers based on the post above, I noticed that I actually made a mistake in the original article.

The number of people in Germany between 18 and 40 is around 23m, therefore the number of males in that age group is roughly half of that - i.e. 11.5m instead of 23m as assumed.

This would actually mean that the overall system is less sustainable than I originally thought.

yeah everything is about to collapse any second now :P

1. Levels of deposits will consolidate well below peak levels simply because the peak occurred during unnatural economic circumstances. (house flipping bubble)

2. There will be some deposits because every day a new loser becomes 18 or whatever the legal age where they live.

3. There should be more competition to avoid Stars raking everything.

4. Poker players should get organised to support game organisers who will listen. Sit in protests instead of sit out. Group buying. If there is no one worth supporting players should create competition by organising low rake games themselves.

5. Poker organisers should look to compete for market share against other gambling sectors.
Should think hard and long how to target bookies, casinos, lotteries, bingo markets.

5.a. Large field huge guarantee small entry fee mtt-s with life changing money for the winner have a strong lottery aspect. It can motivate lottery player types to do poker.
Also they dont require day in day out grinding. Which is a positive as well. People shouldnt waste theire life on top of losing money. A once a week shot at big money is more in line with the idea of "recreational" then spending all someones free time to negative grind their savings.

6. To create big fields with big guarantees Multi-entry mtt the FTP way are helpful after all lottery priceppols are also created by people being able to buy as many lottery tickets as they want.

7. To further increase liquidity there should be staking exchanges integrated into the sites.Some ppl will want to bet that someone with a big score will win again and buy a share.The more In the know backers can use opr pokerprolabs etc to choose their investment.

good thread

Great post OP.

My question is, if you are a poker site and you tone down or even remove the get rich rick quick incentive advertising and marketing, how are you going to attract the average recreational player? I was always under the impression that the engine that drove most average recreational players to start playing cards was exactly this allure?

I just have a hard time seeing how you can attract the masses without the appeal of the Moneymaker story. I think the real push needs to be towards some sort of consumer rights legislation that heavily regulates the industry, and finds a way to dramatically lower the rake.

I just have a hard time seeing industry regulating itself for the overall greater good at the expense of short term profit.

Great post!

This is true. Another very big difference is the learning curve. In computer games, the first levels are super easy, you only face very weak resistance and you have annoying popups giving you tips about what to do. Online games use ranking systems to match players against other players on a similar skill level. This way even the complete noob can enjoy the game and feel that he has a chance. Computer games also offer tutorials and strategy tips to help and encourage new players improve their game.

In poker new players are often faced by a bunch of multitabling regs who have fine-tuned their strategy (or at least tried to) to be able to steal as much money as possible from noobs. The new players are as a result often slaughtered and they don't enjoy their time at the tables very much.

There is not much offered in terms of games where new players could practice against opponents on their own level. Sure there is play money, but that hardly teaches you much about beating real money tables. I've seen some sites offer beginner tables (don't know what that means) or tables for people playing one table only (no multitabling nits). I'm sure new players enjoy playing tables without multitabling nits a lot more, but I'm also sure it would cause a huge uproar among uNL grinders if stars suddenly offered tables that take the fish away from the regular tables...

With the amount of hours that poker sites have people glued to their computers and the number of eyes they have looking at their digital felt tables, why haven'tv sites started putting logos/advertising on their digital felt tables. By doing so they could shift some of the cost (rake) from the players to advertisers. Surely some advertisers would be interested? The demographic that plays online poker is primarily 18-30 and that is a prime market for products like beer, electronics etc.. Anyone have any insight on why no poker site has done this yet?

I dont understand the ...

Gamblers leave after they are busted and dont comeback
I mean , they are gamblers!!! they will be back when they have money again!!
The same happens with recreational players , they have 20$ budget if they spend it in 1 day
they will be back when they have the $ again...
Can u please explain this better ?
Ty

I liked the FTP steps as a lot of bad players got a lot more play out of their buy ins and that they were able to use their step tickets to eventually be able to buy into higher stales MTT and MTSNG's. As a matter of fact that's how i bought myself into a few HSMTT's.
In general I do share OP's sentiment in regards of targeting a new type of recreational player. There is a need to be a structure in the lower stakes that creates a high volume of players that allows for reasonable buy ins in types of games that don't burn through money fast and at the same time can serve as a gateway to regular games at the mid and higher stakes games.

I think poker sites feel like they will be giving up potential income if they allow other industries to start advertising on their software.


Pokerstars doesn't want players logging off in the middle of a session because they saw an ad for a new movie and decide to go watch it instead of playing more hands/paying more rake.

Also why does no one bring up the economy as a whole when they are talking about the future health of poker? Sure back in 2005-08 the games were easy as hell and money was there for the taking. But that was how the real economy was functioning as well, I was able to find a 55k/yr job as a 19 year old with no college degree and no skills or training back then. Now I can barely find a job waiting tables or answering phones.

There is not as much money moving around as there was 5-6 years ago. As the economy rebounds and people start to build up wealth again, we will obviously see an increase in the amount of recreational players and the amount of disposable income they have to play poker with.

TLDR: stop worrying that poker is going to die out. When people have money, they will gamble with it. Right now the problem is most people don't have money to gamble with, not that they don't want to play poker.

pretty good post. however, you are making a ****-ton of assumptions. also, some of these models are shaky at best. simply put, one would need a room full of economist working for two weeks to come up with some real figures.

Interesting idea

People keep talking about how rake is ruining the games... but for recreational players, rake doesn't matter one iota. Many probably don't even know-or care- that it exists. All they care about is if their hand looks pretty or not.

Rake has little to nothing to do with recreational gambling.

Deposit bonuses and customization are what lure the recreational gamblers. Little things like Stars allowing you to upload a personal picture as your avatar... that's a nice perk for a lot of people. Beyond new skins, I'm not sure how much more customization an online poker room could really offer, but customization and deposit bonuses are the way to go. People love to gamble with house money.

They said this about advertisements in baseball and football parks.

Now the customers get exorbitant ticket prices AND they get to be inundated with ads and 1 minute of play for 2 minutes of commercials in between.

In short, what you said is pure fantasy, that you can pass along the cost to advertisers. Sure the advertisers will foot a bill, but the consumer won't benefit at all. Only the card room will.

LOL. Given all of the other arbitrary assumptions in your model I wouldn't worry about this mistake. Your overall ideas seem good but the quantitative analysis you present is pretty much worthless.

I brought it up in a few threads. Its amazing how people who are much more clever than me don't get this .

Think of recreational players as fish.
Winning players as fisherman.
Poker operators as the taxman.

Because the economy is in trouble there is less fish and they are not as fat as they used to be.
There is more fisherman because poker as a "sport" is constantly maturing.
So the fisherman are already in trouble for those two reasons and yet the taxman is still trying to take the amount from them that he got used to during the poker bubble .
Of course the fisherman are unhappy with this situation.
Allegorically speaking.

the economy is the biggest issue, as is the training sites.

all the poker players who started issuing out videos, forgot to remember in the long term, their pockets will be somewhat hurt. catching ppl up on how to play profitably, or at least how not to lose as quickly, hurt the bottomline for the winners.

while poker books were out for years before training sites came out, they didnt have near the info that these guys now are putting out. 3 bet ranges, 4 bet ranges, top of the range, bottom of ure range, etc. concepts that werent even mentioned in most poker books.

so now, with the economy the way it is, the players u see playing, are better educated and have stronger strategies than in years past. without the influx of new players, u have a lot of stagnation. with the rake, the money is flowing out faster than in.

so what do u do?
well theres a few ideas.

rake free poker(for the pot that is)
-pay to play certain amt of hands/time
-sites still can make their money, but w/o raping the community. obvs tournies will still have stnd rake.

another site opens or stars makes some changes and
-agn rake free, but thru advertising revenue, the site makes money.

mentioned this before one time, and one of the posts before this also mentions why ads arent on poker tables yet. i have no idea, but imo its only a matter of time until we see "TIDE" on the felt instead of "POKERSTARS"

Gross conceptual error. Poker played for real money is gambling, always has been gambling, and always will be gambling. Full stop. There's a food chain and the lowest rung on it is filled with degenerate gamblers. That's the way is. If you don't like the way we make the sausage, stay out of the kitchen.

Of course fish dont care about rake but they do care about their money lasting longer.

Maybe movies would be bad but advertsing beer etc should be alright, especially if it means more recreational players playing drunk :P

Speaking of beer, how about packs of beer coming with free mtt tickets? A friday night tourney or something, get ppl to bring their laptops round their mates and see who gets furthest, bet you people busting out would end up depositing and playing more tourneys too.