Public opinion is almost always in flux when it comes to just about everything, and usually it comes down to the popularity and perceived value of the thing in question. As an example, in entertainment, Star Wars was once seen as one of the most highly-regarded and biggest money-making franchises in the world. Then, the sequel trilogy and TV shows hit, and now the public opinion of it is tepid, to say the least.
The same can be observed in sports. The NBA in particular has enjoyed an explosion of interest over the last decade or so, grabbing fans who perhaps would have gravitated towards the NFL before the series of safety concerns and cover-ups were revealed. Everything ebbs and flows, but perhaps one of the starkest changes in the world of sports entertainment can be seen in the rise of the classic card game poker.
Simple to grasp, tough to master, the game of poker has been around for some 200 years, and yet it wasn’t until the turn of this millennium that it truly boomed into the mainstream. It’s hard to imagine now, but poker was once frowned upon in the US, whereas today it’s perhaps one of the most widely and socially acceptable forms of gambling – it’s even played on TV! This, we shall see, is all thanks to the timely and apt applications of key tech over the years.
Booming Growth to Global Dominance
As of the end of last year, insights into the size of the market of poker worldwide pointed to it being valued at around $86 billion. By 2023, that figure is estimated to grow to some $306 billion. Right now, poker is surging, or perhaps even simply continuing to boom after the original perfect storm that was the catalyst for poker’s modern-day popularity in all forms.
Many elements are said to have played into the poker boom of the ’00s, the biggest of which including increased TV coverage as a sports entertainment event and the multi-million tournament triumph on the most vaunted poker stage of all by an amateur. While Chris Moneymaker didn’t apply any tech while he was at the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event table, he did qualify via an $86 satellite tournament online, which eventually netted him $2.5 million.
Still, it was the World Poker Tour being established as a televised event that truly lit the spark. From June 2002 to April 2003, the first season of the new tournament was shown on the Travel Channel, utilizing special new equipment such as the hole camera to clue the audience in on everything, including things that even the players couldn’t know. As said by its creator, Steve Lipscomb, with a peak of 2.2 million concurrent viewers in its first run, they “blew the doors off” with this event.
Keen Digital Innovators
Poker continues to be a popular form of sports entertainment on television – particularly in the massive US market and when it comes to the World Series of Poker. Still, it’s the online space that so many people pile into to play poker regularly. As Moneymaker’s case shows, online poker has been around for a long time, only now it’s much more refined, varied, and competitive across platforms to make it even more player-friendly.
Having player-vs-player poker sites is one thing, but having more ways to play has certainly boosted the public perception and accessibility of the game. You can see this perfectly demonstrated in the prominence of video poker online. Video poker has been a casino staple for quite some time, but often off to the side as a novelty game. Online, platforms proudly showcase their video poker games as an alternate way to play for big pots.
Owing to the popularity of the classic games, platforms sought to expand, bring in more variants, and introduce new ways to play. So now, playing top video poker games means choosing between the likes of Jacks or Better, Bonus Deuces Wild, Double Double Bonus Poker, Joker Poker, and Aces and Face Multi-Hand. On the latter, this is actually a variation of a variation, building on the setup of Jacks or Better for an enhanced experience.
Video poker pits the player against the machine. You need to find the best hand possible by simply holding cards set to make winning combinations and sending back others to be replaced. Perhaps working more off of this formula than competitive player-vs-player poker, live casino poker has also enhanced the card gaming scene. Here, in a live-streamed game, players try to build a better poker hand than the human dealer on the other side of the camera.
What’s Next to Power Up Poker?
Drawing from the popularity of player-vs-player poker and live casino poker, the next step would surely be live video poker rooms. Naturally, there would be a lot of safeguarding and protocols for a platform to program in, but given the quality of the photographs that can be taken on an iPhone, live video poker rooms should be able to deliver a high-quality and immersive experience that also draws in one of the biggest parts of playing poker – the poker face.
Aside from live streaming, virtual reality worlds in the ever-encroaching metaverse could be another big leap. As their avatars, people could go into rooms and play against each other, or even just walk up to a digital video poker machine and play that with a headset on. For more single-player action, AI could be used to create an incredibly advanced coach and sparring partner to help people improve their poker game.
Poker’s boom was greatly owing to applying technology to what was privately a very popular, classic card game. In the decades to come, with more advanced tech coming to the fore, it might just grow even faster than has been predicted.
