Just want to start out by saying that I perused the 2 + 2 website, wasn't sure the best place for what I am trying to communicate, i'm not really asking for anything and not particularly interested in getting any kind of investment or putting myself into debt with anyone, so I think a blog is as good as any to start off with. I'm more interested in just starting a conversation specific to Poker, its future in the U.S. and more specifically an emphasis on my own opinions which when I put into writing helps me focus more.

Little background on myself: 25 y/o male living in Kansas City, KC, have been playing NLHE online since 2003 and live since 2009 recreationally.
Seems fairly obvious, especially in light of the fantasy draft boom that has exploded across the U.S. that the emphasis on poker being a game of skill rather than gambling is the only way to get poker legalized in the U.S.

I'm taking the time to write this because as a Kansas City native I feel I can adequately explain why Kansas City would be an ideal starting place for generating the next Poker boom if it's even possible to match the last one. The biggest emphasis on KC is that it is a city that spreads across 2 states, so especially when pushing an emphasis for taxation and being business friendly its not only possible but necessary to negotiate between the 2 states for which one wants your business more.

KC has rediscovered its love in the last year with sports in general, especially with the success of the Royals this year (they are playing in the World Series tonight in case you live in a bomb shelter) but the fact that daily fantasy sports is finding so much success here is directly related to our ingrained home town pride. Anything with a KC logo is worth as much as it weighs right now, and continuing that momentum seems like good timing if the "next big thing sports thing" were to originate out of KC.

Local businesses will literally sponsor anything to reach a wider audience. I could personally name 5 to 10 18-25 year old men that would be willing to travel the entire KC area at minimum wage with a very basic sales commissions going door to door to get crowd funded and business sponsorships.

KC is going to be an ideal area for hosting servers reaching a wider audience driven by social media, peer to peer, and twitch tv specifically due to Olathe KS being the first location to receive google fiber. My residence is already signed up for it, and the deadline to receive first service is going to be November 12th. Basically as far as an online broadcasting point of view i'm not convinced there is a better area to start in the U.S, not even just for poker but just twitch gaming in general.

KC has already established and convenient local casinos, poker rooms on both the Kansas side and Missouri side, as well as a huge audience for everything sports related, so the potential for ANYTHING sports related and even gaming related is peaking in an area that has a huge middle class, high class, but also even high standards of living for a large part of struggling paycheck by paycheck average joes. Add that with a huge transportation / freight market, a plethora of college towns within a reasonable distance, and very very business friendly counties ( google Johnson County KS ) it has amazing potential.

Starting any sort of Poker training, hosting Poker tournaments, finding local poker clubs has literally never been easier in this area, but it's mostly untapped potential with no sort of professionalism unless you are dealing directly with Casinos.

No real summation i'm just testing the water on a respected Poker forum, i'v been bouncing these ideas around in my head and writing ideas for Poker, twitch, and games of skill in general, have a notebook and a half of ideas for content ect.

Not asking where to start or what people think the numbers would be, literally just seeing if I can generate more interest than just what I can drum up from local business owners and family members already interested.

Typed this out freehand so if my ideas don't seem very ordered or if anyone wants to continue the discussion, would be happy to clarify or if you think you have valuable insight I would love to hear it.

I am also certain that if a poker interest was coming out of Kansas and/or Missouri, which is pretty obviously one of the most conservative states in the nation, that just that by itself would probably make a poker market easier to spearhead.

If anyone watches twitch can look me up at verycrooked and ask questions live, just playing play money PLO no delay on pokerstars, using the tools available to me to improve my own game.

From my experience living in KC, I'd say it's one of the last places in the US to start a new poker boom..

Interesting? What experiences? Are you active in any of the local casinos/cash games/regular tournaments or only play online? Just curious exactly how you would come to that conclusion except for just saying "i don't think so" ?

Edit: this is kind of what i was trying to avoid by posting the way i did, just saying "i don't think so" really has 0 value to me, would love to hear what you actually think though

I think he's saying KC is chit hole and don't expect a boom there anytime soon. Doubt you need much more explanation.

Ah so is that how this forum works? I was just assuming that if you actually took time to even bother reading a post, you might bother actually explaining your reasoning instead of just saying "that's stupid" but hey, you know what they say about assuming.

I'd go more often if Harrah's or Ameristar had anything above 1/2. Hollywood has bigger games, but the good action is on the weekends when I have other things to do.

From the "normal" people I know around here, most love sports, beer and BBQ. Not a single one cares about poker.

Nope, I really like living in KC. Just not for the poker, but that's not among my priorities right now anyway.

You are literally highlighting every point I was trying to say, but immediately responded with "oh you are wrong".

I was specifically talking about KC being a huge market for sports and how big Daily Fantasy Drafts are becoming. The way they are able to get around GAMBLING laws by saying that it is a skill based game and not gambling.
No one cares about Poker in the area except people already involved in the game because what's super convenient for them is being able to do it online.

Poker isn't your priority but i am directly quoting you when you say that if there were more poker action in the area and more convenient (especially not on the weekends when you are busy) you would play more often.

Poker isn't HUGELY popular in KC but it already has an established and thriving local tournament schedule and cash games nearly every day of the week. What I am saying and I thought i had already typed a wall of text about this is that it is a fantastic place to start because everyone loves "sports, beer and BBQ" and as i already typed out, tying everything together for the market that is already there would be very simple.

Just a couple other random thoughts: promoting play money poker as the most effective training tool for being able to learn on your own time, acquire a hobby with potentially massive monetary rewards, and emphasizing the social aspect of poker (making it more about being something to do with people you like that involves minimal financial investment but amazing rewards if you manage to win) is pretty important.

Seems like a fairly simple step towards making online poker more of a F2P microtransaction driven for play money, top winners get entered into non-monetary raffles and all that good stuff.

Local stations have so much air time (TV and Radio) to fill that they are literally willing to talk about anything KC, they already spend all their time trolling social media for anything interesting to talk about.

I just think it's fantastic timing with all the interest in the Royals, daily draft fantasies, sports betting, as well as just the general atmosphere and dynamic between Kansas and Missouri competition for business generating tax revenue and all that jazz.

Would love to hear 1 person reply that has more than "you're wrong" with nothing behind the thought process.

Small Stakes Hold 'Em by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth was the first book I ever read on poker, always was under the impression that 2+2 forums and publishing were the go to place for poker influences.

No, they "get around GAMBLING laws..." by there being an exception for fantasy sports in the law.

I admire your enthusiasm, but your making some false assumptions.

One of which is that what you are proposing doesn't already exists in this area to a certain extent and hasn't been around for some time.

Not going to pretend like i'v actually read into the actual legislation, and i'm sure it is a false assumption. But I can tell you if I walked up to anyone not involved in actual legislation and asked them what conclusion they would come to given the recent advertising and spin Daily Draft Fantasy has been promoting, they would assume the same thing if that makes any sense?
And again this is not about the sports betting boom that is already underway in the area because that is all pretty well locked down by now. I am just talking about spinning off the already proven success of that field in the area and how it could be used to promote poker as a skill based game, especially when you add in play money poker as training for actual live events.

Replied before you made the edit, and I definitely see the validness of that point. The point I was intending to make (which as you can see I am just going off hearsay, social media, and talking to people i know) is that with the recent explosion of KC sports and basically bandwagon jumpers is that it would possibly be an ideal time to start in the area with Poker specifically in mind.

When I was talking about you ignoring things that already existed, I was speaking about poker. And when you talk about play money poker as training for actual live events, that is called bar poker. It has been around this area since 2003 and at the peak, could be played at more than forty venues.

And it doesn't matter why people think DFS are legal. What matters is the real reason they are legal.

Well if you would look in my original post, I actually made an exact point about that?

Oops keep editing, sorry think I am actually replying to fast. I was not talking about the legality one way or the other, as I stated I havn't looked into specific legislation.
The entire point of my original post was more about why I think the greater KC area is a good place for generating poker content, and I actually do appreciate you taking the time to tell me the problems that would be the first thing in everyone's head if I start a conversation in the future about it.

Having been involved since 2004, I think I have a pretty good perspective on poker in the area.

I strongly disagree with the idea that leagues aren't run professionally. Now, they may not be run as strictly as casino games, but that is the nature of the venues and that leagues are generally self-dealt.

The two states won't be fighting over the location of a poker related company because the economic impact won't be that great.

In Missouri, even home games aren't legal. Boats came in and home games being legal went out the window.

Plus, the state AG is trying to get the feds to crackdown on online poker.

Don't get me started on Kansas.

I was more referring to new leagues, not already established leagues that advertise based on how conveniently they are located to who they are advertising towards.
Quite a few newer "poker clubs" in my area (Olathe, KS) basically go business to business soliciting that they will generate more traffic on a certain day in return for a minimum amount of money and/or a percentage of whatever sales are generated from the business.
I know that because I have worked in several bars and restaurants in the area and personally told more than 3 people with the same idea that the whole "give me money and i'll bring customers but you have to pay first" mentality doesn't really fly if you can understand it from my view point.
Also, the greater Kansas City area is a mass of suburbs and across 2 states, so obviously we will have had different experiences. I am just talking about it from my point of view as a 25 y/o poker enthusiast that has lived in KC since the age of 3, attended high school here and some college.

Well, I grew up in a town not far from here, have lived in the area longer then you have, and had been a very active bar poker player. I got to know a lot of players, TDs, and bar owners during that time.

All valid points, even the Kansas one.
Once again, trying to avoid steering the conversation into only the legal aspects, especially since the majority of Kansas City is more into baseball right now than Poker.
The main point I was trying to make a conversation about was actually Poker Content, I dropped the ball with the original post even mentioning legalization of Poker since that's obviously not an overnight thing.
I was trying to actually talk about just Poker content in general and why KC would be a fantastic place for it, and that's what happens when I freehand a post and get way to ahead of myself.
I understand that the legality of anything is taken in baby steps, i'm really just trying to get the conversation back to why KC would be an ideal place to make even something as simple as Poker training videos, new poker learning leagues, and I was getting 300x steps ahead of myself by even mentioning legalization.

Edit: Also, google fiber in Olathe, KS and why making online content and videos has never been easier, server hosting prices going down, all that jazz
Edit edit: When I was talking about Missouri versus Kansas and companies ect, obviously i'm not thinking next year they would be willing to give you deals, I was just referring to the giant companies that have headquarters in the area that provide alot of jobs, and why the area is business friendly.

Not sure why you thought this was the right forum given it's description:

but welcome to the forum I guess.

Well, if my poker dreams are more in the realm of wanting to spend my time worrying more about why I can't play poker online in the comfort of my own home, and have to actually put on pants and go to a casino, is that not relevant?

Edit: and yes I understand that there are 100 shady websites I can play poker on, please don't send me referral links

Well, making poker in this area bigger seems to be a dream of his. And trust me, it will be a challenge.

You can play online poker in the comfort of your home. Playing for cash on ClubWPT is legal in Kansas, you can also play on sister site WPTLeague, and you can play on unregulated sites I believe.

ClubWPT is a terrible, terrible website, and it's also like I already said based more around subscription and "entry for prizes", not actual (in my personal opinion) poker like the rest of the free world enjoys.

I'm going to check back for sure, I appreciate the feedback like I said in the beginning post it helps me focus my own ideas when I write them out.

If anyone has anything to say except "that's a bad idea" or feel like they have anything enlightening instead of "that's not going to work" or wants to PM me feel free would love to hear. Going to go watch the Royals crush the Mets' dreams.

When you get private messages, I would definitely like to talk to you.