Football is here! The one time of the year I have a little time to play poker is the summer, and I played quite a bit online on the WSOP.com online site in Nevada. I expected great success, and for online poker to be wildly popular. I was wrong.
I am massively disappointed at the poor turnout for Online Poker. At any given time, there seems to be maybe 300 folks on the site, and almost no 'large' games. Typically. the largest NL games are 2/4 and 3/6 where there are almost always a few tables running.
The problem is that the tables at ALL levels at .50/1.00 or above are chock full of pro players. These sharks literally tear apart any recreational player who wanders into their domain.
Given so many pro players, how are they making money? The WSOP.com has so many promo programs (it's hard to keep track of them all) that a pro player who is profitable (even just slightly profitable) can make a living with all the money he rakes in with those promos (too numerous to mention). However, that gives the Pro player great incentive to rack up the hours multi-tabling....... making the cash games at almost any level impossible for the recreational player.
The recreational players have somewhat figured this all out, as you see them playing the big multi table tournaments (where there is a much higher concentration of 'normal' players), but they are few and far between at the cash games, especially during non weekend hours.
Further, the hands are dealt so quickly in online, that if you are a average player you are going to lose almost any long session. In live, getting only 30 hands/hour or so, you can easily win if you get good cards during a 2-3 hour session even against good players..........but that is quite the feat to do it online for 3 hours.
I know the fantasy sports marketplace has been exploding, but I think it could well have the same fate. Many LOVE playing fantasty sports, they have their league with 10 players with their friends, and they have done pretty well.
That success will not continue when they go into deeper waters in fantasy sports daily leagues, where the sharks are circling, and playing dozens of entries gobbling up these folks, most of them have no chance to win long term. The problem is that all these sites make so much money from letting the pros play all these multiple entries, that it is in their short term best interest to allow it.
During the Bobby Fisher Boom, chess became hip in the 1970s, tournaments were fun, and people flocked to them. The average chess rating seemed to be that of a C Player around 1500. However, by the 1980s the fun was gone......the average rating was way, way higher in them, a C Player who was going 2-2-1 in them was now going 1-4 for a weekend. It's no fun not being able to win, and they all started disappearing.
Fantasy Sports will have a similar fate. It will explode UP initially, but then the recreational players will grow weary of losing, and the games (especially the 50/50 and HU games) will dry up.......