What On Earth Does The Future Hold?
For those who have been hidden under a rock for the last few days, I'm talking about the impact of the US legislation effectively banning monetary transactions for US citizens to online poker sites.
Living in the UK, it doesn't directly affect me. But, in several indirect ways, it sure does.
How safe is anyone's money? Having money invested in a US site worries me. And obviously i don't want to lose it. Party Poker lost 60% of their value on the UK stock exchange today. Not that I play on there, but it doesn't inspire confidence.
Where are the fish going to go? Many people speculate that there will be ways round this legislation. I am more sceptical. Whilst there may be ways of doing it, who are going to be doing this? Surely the vast majority will be the serious players, whilst the fish will just waste money on something else...
The only ways that the situation will be the same this time next year, or even this time in 5 years is, in my opinion, one of two ways. Firstly the american situation gets resolved and everyone can continue as before. Secondly that there is huge advertising in the far east and we get a load of new players from there. The chinese who i know who play poker are huge gamblers, which could be good for us.
I'm actually seriously considering withdrawing all my online bankroll. Some people may view this as extreme, but surely when you have a decent amount of money in an institution and it's very existence is under threat, even if you have a 5% doubt in your mind that you could lose it then surely withdrawing it is the right option. Obviously I'm not giving up playing poker, far from it in fact, because I fully intend to carry on playing for a living. I'm just probably going to assess the situation over the next few weeks and try to work out if it's safe to redeposit and play, and if so, to decide which sites are safe.
On the poker front I played sparingly in the late stages of last week and picked up just over 4 buyins. I guess I picked a bad week to have most of the week off.
I actually had a good weekend away from poker. I went out into town on Friday night, on Saturday I didn't do too much but made $420 on poker, £60 on a football bet and £190 on machines. On Sunday I played football, we played really well and beat a team who were unbeaten this season 4-2 away. And then a few of us went to Spurs and we beat Portsmouth 2-1. Bit of a dodgy penalty but never mind, we are usually on the receiving end of bad decisions!
I really hope that the situation gets resolved (or even made clearer) regarding the future of online poker, but I have little confidence that it will in the immediate short term. I cannot believe that these huge multi million (billion?) companies have not even had meetings about this matter or drafted some sort of contingency plan or looked into potential implications in advance. But that's what I'm reading - they simply thought it wouldn't happen.
If I do decide to withdraw my roll online today I'll still be very active in the cardrunners forums as usual, and I'm also in the process of writing some strategy articles, so I'll still be involved with the game. I've written an article about table selection which I'll add probably tomorrow. I've got tons of thoughts on some more too. I really hope this isn't the end of poker online as we know it.
Good luck everyone, and if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to comment below.
Dan.
Living in the UK, it doesn't directly affect me. But, in several indirect ways, it sure does.
How safe is anyone's money? Having money invested in a US site worries me. And obviously i don't want to lose it. Party Poker lost 60% of their value on the UK stock exchange today. Not that I play on there, but it doesn't inspire confidence.
Where are the fish going to go? Many people speculate that there will be ways round this legislation. I am more sceptical. Whilst there may be ways of doing it, who are going to be doing this? Surely the vast majority will be the serious players, whilst the fish will just waste money on something else...
The only ways that the situation will be the same this time next year, or even this time in 5 years is, in my opinion, one of two ways. Firstly the american situation gets resolved and everyone can continue as before. Secondly that there is huge advertising in the far east and we get a load of new players from there. The chinese who i know who play poker are huge gamblers, which could be good for us.
I'm actually seriously considering withdrawing all my online bankroll. Some people may view this as extreme, but surely when you have a decent amount of money in an institution and it's very existence is under threat, even if you have a 5% doubt in your mind that you could lose it then surely withdrawing it is the right option. Obviously I'm not giving up playing poker, far from it in fact, because I fully intend to carry on playing for a living. I'm just probably going to assess the situation over the next few weeks and try to work out if it's safe to redeposit and play, and if so, to decide which sites are safe.
On the poker front I played sparingly in the late stages of last week and picked up just over 4 buyins. I guess I picked a bad week to have most of the week off.
I actually had a good weekend away from poker. I went out into town on Friday night, on Saturday I didn't do too much but made $420 on poker, £60 on a football bet and £190 on machines. On Sunday I played football, we played really well and beat a team who were unbeaten this season 4-2 away. And then a few of us went to Spurs and we beat Portsmouth 2-1. Bit of a dodgy penalty but never mind, we are usually on the receiving end of bad decisions!
I really hope that the situation gets resolved (or even made clearer) regarding the future of online poker, but I have little confidence that it will in the immediate short term. I cannot believe that these huge multi million (billion?) companies have not even had meetings about this matter or drafted some sort of contingency plan or looked into potential implications in advance. But that's what I'm reading - they simply thought it wouldn't happen.
If I do decide to withdraw my roll online today I'll still be very active in the cardrunners forums as usual, and I'm also in the process of writing some strategy articles, so I'll still be involved with the game. I've written an article about table selection which I'll add probably tomorrow. I've got tons of thoughts on some more too. I really hope this isn't the end of poker online as we know it.
Good luck everyone, and if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to comment below.
Dan.
posted by Fruitypro at
10/02/2006 06:36:00 pm
1 Comments:
The future is certainly unsure as far as online poker goes however,i think your find things will pickup.I think the US market was reaching peak anyway,like you said in your blog poker sites are now going to concenstrate on the emerging markets far east,india even europe there is plenty of growth here.It will take time fore things to settle down but they will.Good luck at the tables ,keep up with the blog
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Anonymous, at Mon Oct 02, 09:37:00 pm
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