The Future of Online Poker – Four Years Later, Part Two

In my last post, I was talking about the future of online gambling.  I made heavy emphasis to Zynga and all of the other “social gaming” that takes place on laptops and mobile devices worldwide.  It’s a $3-billion-plus industry and growing…but it’s not the be-all and end-all of online gaming here in the US.  At least, I hope not.

I said in Part One that we need to look at England and I hinted at where else to look for something that will finally bring online gaming where it should be in the 21^st Century – legal, available, regulated, and fun.

Why can’t we be like the English?  The link I referenced above (and here for you who are too lazy to scroll up) states that, in a recent survey, almost half of all respondents said they had gambled in some form or fashion in the last month.  More women are gambling than before, and in another survey, younger punters(18-24) showed an increase, too.  The report also cited an uptick in those gambling on a mobile device.  The UK has a very well regulated gaming industry, and that includes the online component.  All gambling is controlled by just ONE national commission, although there’s plenty of different ways to gamble, just like here in the US.

One of the most popular and long-running gambles are the football (soccer) pools.  As Wikipedia states, “The pools are typically cheap to enter, with the potential to win a very large sum of money.”  There are more than 1,000 betting shops in London alone, and the football betting market is estimated to be worth about 650 million pounds (about $800 million US).  Most Englanders love to gamble, and the government makes an effort to provide those who do with a safe and legal gaming environment.  Face it – gambling is accepted and ubiquitous in the UK.  And rightly so.

How so very different than here, where so-called “guardians of morality” protest lotteries as a “tax on the poor” and local casinos are “predatory.”  And we all know who decries online gaming as a scourge – “think of the children, click on a mouse and lose your house.”  That this hypocrite obtains his vast wealth from gambling – the very industry that he chastises in a different form – is repulsive.

Yes, it’s Sheldon Adelson I’m talking about.

Adelson may be the biggest hypocrite about gambling, but he’s certainly not alone, and that’s why the state of online gambling is where it is.  It seems that most who have a say in the matter know there’s an absolute shitpile of money that can be made – but no one wants to do much sharing.  So we putter along in dribs and drabs…a couple of states launch online casinos and poker rooms, and then Sheldon starts his CSIG.  Daily Fantasy Sports suddenly explode on the scene, and then just as suddenly they have their own “Black Friday.”  DFS is making a bit of a comeback, as many states are changing their laws to allow DFS; however, some other states are going in the other direction, prohibiting it just as they do other online gambling.

So is DFS the future of online gaming?  Well, not quite.  I alluded to this in my last post.  I said, “Look at the top left-corner of your PokerStars app.  That’s a clue…”  See it there – Fantasy Sports.  That’s the clue.  But it’s not DFS that will bring the USA in line with the UK and into a modern age where gambling is seen, like in England, as something completely natural, fun, AND legal.

It’s sports betting. 

Actually betting on the game, not some made-up lineup in a make-believe world.  If you’re a fan of Daily Fantasy Sports, well, that’s just great, but face it – DFS is a poor substitute for REAL sports wagering.  Kinda like Zynga is a poor substitute for PokerStars (the way it was, anyway).  DFS took off because it was available – the only thing going – the only game in town.  If you had a choice, would you spend your time and money coming up with fantasy drafts or just root, root, root for the home team…to cover the spread?  I thought so.

Again, look at the UK.  DraftKings and FanDuel are finally up and running as of last summer there, but they are a pale shadow to the amount of $$$ that goes into the traditional pools.  Google “DFS in UK” and you get a furniture store, not gambling.

There is some positive movement that maybe, just maybe, we’ll shuck our Victorian ways on this.  It’s no secret than NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is a proponent of betting on games.  He’s been consistent on this for the last few years.  Just last month MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said it was it's time for Major League Baseball to give "fresh consideration" to legalized sports betting.  It’s no secret that MLB, the NBA, NFL and NHL are all participating in advertising and sponsorships with Daily Fantasy Sports.  So is betting on games the next logical step?

The American Gaming Association thinks so.  They’ve called it a “perfect storm” and are lobbying Washington to make it happen.  They even think Donald Trump is the man to make it so, and he took a cautious approach to subject when asked about it on his Super Bowl Fox interview.

I’ve long said that once the NFL figures out how to get 3% of the take on sports betting, they’ll give it their stamp of approval.  Hell, if they get 3% of damn near anything they’re likely to say AOK.  It’s always about the money.

So while there’s some excitement in the online poker advocacy world that we might DOUBLE the number of states offering iPoker from three to six with NY, PA, and MI (and that’s only a hope, remember), that only leaves 44 more to go.  And you can play DFS in Utah (does Chaffetz know that?) – so let that be a beacon shining a bit of clarity as to what it’s gonna take to make online gambling a reality here.

This is how it will happen.  I don’t know how soon…it might be in the next four years, maybe not.  At some point, Americans will quit caring how other people spend their time and money and let that which is regulated and controlled be, even if they don’t wish to participate.  Tobacco.  Liquor.  Gambling.  Gay marriage.  Marijuana (getting there…and Utah might NOT be the last holdout).  Hard to fathom that of all of these, gambling is the last thing the Puritans hang on to.  But it’s not about what’s right and what’s not – it’s about the money.

Always has been.

The Future of Online Poker – Four Years Later, Part One

Four years ago I penned a 3-part series about the “State of Poker.”  Because I cross-post to Facebook, one of the articles popped up as a “memory” and I shared it over the weekend, saying

“Consider Zynga and PokerStars, and ask yourself this - of those two, which one has made themselves look more like the other one? Yeah...so I was right four years ago.”

Well, partially right.

The rationale for such a series was that we were starting to see the first state-sanctioned Internet poker rooms approved for Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada.  It had been almost two years since “Black Friday,” and the initial wave of states moving forward with regulated online poker was seen by some, including me, as the “first step” in revitalizing what was a phenomenon of the digital felt.

The three parts – The Future (of Online Poker) Looks (1) Great, (2) Scary, and (3) Predictable described the scene as of four years ago.  No one could be absolutely sure what to expect – whereas in the Golden Age (seven years prior) PokerStars and Full Tilt has tens of thousands of players around the world at thousands of tables at every stakes imaginable, the three states no doubt would start much smaller.  They all had their handicaps, including the fact that every new online casino/poker room had to tie in with an existing casino in NV and NJ, a fact I decried at the time (what online casino needs 200 hotel rooms, anyway?).  But like all decisions political, it all came down to emoheneewhy – MONEY – and states took the richest (for them) path.  At the time, anyway.  Besides, we in the poker community thought thusly – as more states jump online, the poker boom will return, post-haste.

And then there was Sheldon. 

Seeing the return of online competition, Uncle Moneybags and his Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling was launched, with the intent of stopping and reversing the meager progress i-poker had made.   We’ve seen no reversal, but as for progress?

We still have three states online.  That’s all.

Sure, others have written bills and passed bills through one side of their legislatures or the other, but as of now, no other state has what NV, NJ, and DE has.  We might see Pennsylvania, or New York, or Michigan, or maybe one of the dark horse states like Massachusetts (or hell could freeze over and California could pass a bill).  We could also see another sneak attack in Washington and find that Congress has tacked on Sheldon’s RAWA or something like it in the middle of the night to a must-pass bill, or AG Sessions could undermine the DOJ’s 2011 ruling and reverse it, putting online poker in limbo…or worse.

And let me stop and correct myself.  No matter what Congress or Sessions does, online poker will continue.

Just not the consumer-protected, tax-revenued kind. 

Off-shore sites like America’s Cardroom and Full Flush (and others of their ilk) will continue, as will social sites with cashless (free) games like Zynga, WSOP, Governor of Poker, Jackpot Poker, etc.  And it’s Zynga and other social media games that I’d like to focus on here.  Because that’s (sadly) the future of online poker.  To a degree.

You see, people want entertainment.  Poker can be entertaining when you play for real money, and many (self included) believe this.  The idea that a cash game or tournament was a click away brought many basement/country club poker players to the electronic tables to play with (and largely, lose to) the sharks.  Black Friday took care of what remaining fish there were, leaving the sharks and larger fish to fend for themselves in the back-waters of off-shore sites.

But the fish “survived.”  A few took their “new found skills” to live poker rooms, where they experienced a new kind of thrill.  Most went to the cash-less games – some to ad-based sites like NLOP, but many flocked to free games like Zynga, the largest poker room in the world.

What is it about Zynga that attracts players?  It’s certainly not prize money – there isn’t any.  No real prizes, too – just bragging rights for a variety of “challenges” and “leagues” and other tests of skill that mimic other online games they offer like Diner Dash and Farmville.  And simple entertainment, of course.

That’s the key here – what many players in the “online poker boom era” sought was simple entertainment.  It was nothing to pop open the browser and spend a few minutes or a few hours playing poker.  With super-micro buy-ins, one didn’t spend much money, either.   So despite no new states getting on the online poker bandwagon, online poker continues to…exist.  I can’t really say “flourish” except you should know that Zynga made $741 MILLION last year, and makes roughly $28,606 PER DAY.  And it’s FREE.

                                                                                         

Think about that.

Also know that other online freebies like Caesars Slots and MyVegas (MGM and Stations Casinos partner) are also making a buttload of money.  Overall, “social gambling” sites are an almost-THREE-BILLION-DOLLAR business. 

From FREE games.  You see that?  Certainly PokerStars does.

That’s what I meant when I implied that PokerStars looks more like Zynga now rather than the other way ‘round.  Since my original series four years ago, PokerStars has re-branded their free-social gaming site as “Jackpot Poker,” featuring many of the interactive bells and whistles found on Zynga and other play sites, plus gambling-type options like “Beat the Clock” and “Spin-n-Go.”  You can even buy play money from PokerStars, too (and you can now do it from the original application). 

So is THIS the future of gambling?  While states struggle to regulate online poker and other options like lotteries and casino games, millions of Americans spend their time (and money) at social gaming sites, as well as playing other games online like “Words with Friends” and, of course, all the eSports games in all of their genres.

We in the poker advocacy world can’t see why states don’t jump on the bandwagon.  Legislators worry about their revenues, and not wanting to have ANYTHING to do with taxes (like raising them), consider online gaming as a viable option.  And yet, after four years, there’s been no state to jump on that bandwagon.

That’s because it’s not about revenue.  Which is why we play for free – well, most of us do.  Who the hell buys chips, anyway?  OK, you know the answer to that.

So is social gaming the future?  Partly, but it’s not the catalyst that will bring American gaming into the 21^st Century (and I have no idea what will bring Congress and State government leaders into this century, as their continued “gambling is evil” attitude gowns old with me).

The future of online gambling is elsewhere.  Look at England.  Look at the top left-corner of your PokerStars app.  That’s a clue, and I will expand on this in Part Two.