Well it’s the number of professional online poker players that’s in decline and not the players themselves, otherwise that might have suggested that they’re in somewhat of a degenerate gambler mode. There simply aren’t as many online poker players who do it professionally as there were a mere ten years ago and there are a number of reasons for this.
There are ironically more online pro poker players
Quite ironically, there are more professional online poker players than before, despite how it may appear. It only appears as if there are fewer of us because an online poker player these days is nothing to make any noise about. It’s nothing new and isn’t quite the novelty it once was. For every successful poker player that exists there are probably about 20 other unsuccessful ones, and even more who perhaps only try their hand at it just once and walk away with their tail between their legs.
Generally raised standard of players
Since it has become a lot easier for more people to jump online and hone their skills until they can lay claim to being professional poker players, the standard is generally raised. Therefore fewer professional online poker players get the chance to ever stand out from all the others and make a name for themselves as the cream of the crop. More of us have found a way to make some consistent earnings and there are fewer pro players who actually chase that one big payday.
Restrictive online gambling regulations around the world
Since it has been made clear by now that the numbers around pro poker players haven’t in fact declined in the manner suggested by their apparent absence, the fact that there are generally much stricter laws around online gambling should at least have you suspecting that things aren’t quite what they seem. You’d be quite right too – things aren’t what they seem at all.
Just as is the case with banned sites in the likes of China, like Google, Facebook, etc, even the least sophisticated of users can use a proxy server or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access those sites which have been banned via what would probably be the IP level.
Professional online poker playing hasn’t declined, it has simply gone underground.
Moving on to more passive income streams
A contributing factor to what is genuinely a decline in some numbers surrounding pro online poker players is that of how they move on to other income streams which are of a more passive nature. For example I blog about it all, while another pro online poker player may decide to publish something like an e-book about their successes and perhaps sell that instead of having to rely on winnings to bring in the income.
Diversification and migration to other types of online betting games
Another actual contributing factor to the real decline in the number of online poker players is that of how they’re simply choosing to explore other types of games, like sports betting as is the case with me, and online slots.
