Quote:
Originally Posted by Nooseknot
It's obvious the increasing trend will be poker players seek the most profitable sites.
Not sure by some of your posts if you have been into poker seriously or not. But this is simply not true. Most non professionals (and even some Pros) decide by other factors, profit being important, but many other factors as well. Even IF, you need recreational players to feed the system. If you wanna open a successful club, you need hot girls. Guys will follow wherever girls are.
With poker, you need the recreational guys and then you need to make pros feel well. It's that simple.
Your argument about lower rake is also that of an armchair economist. We have actually seen quite a few examples how lower rake is not a competitive advantage. Even rake-free sites didn't make it.
I could continue with cash outs and security of player funds. Another armchair argument, you greatly overestimate this. Players have accepted sub-standard behavior from sites up to masochistic levels. I will say instant cashouts are great and will increase trust, but look at all the advertising of sites, it's not a big deal.
I'm totally with you on p2p models having a great future, mainly bc (if what you say is true) server and legal costs get smashed. Your example with RIO is a very good one. But for virtue.poker and others to even stand a chance, other things have to happen first.
1) ETH smart contracts actually have to work reliably
2) ETH has to be able to scale
3) Virtue.poker has to work in practice, not as a theoretical concept
4) virtue.poker has to be able to scale without lagging
5) Somebody has to create a superior user experience
Also ignoring that people might wish to play in a stable currency
Lot's of "IF's". Technology has to mature first. They'll probably try to get good funding with an ICO now, i don't blame them, but oh well, this is at least 2years away.
Obviously, I'm happy to be wrong here.