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Online Gambling Running Out of Steam

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fewer-suckers-to-rob-at-the-tables dept.

dreamchaser writes "After a meteoric rise, online gambling companies appear to be taking a beating now with the loss of 33% in PartyGaming stock. Apparently the novelty is wearing off and no new players can be found. Why have you stopped playing?"

5 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe it's just this company by gbulmash · · Score: 5, Insightful
    While Party-Gaming is having difficulties with retention and yield, it is quite possible that this is due to growing competition.

    For example, while PartyPoker is well known, PokerStars seems to be coming up fast. They advertise heavily on poker shows, moreso than PartyPoker it seems. Additionally, a visit to both sites generated a pop-up at PartyPoker on the opening page (yes, let's annoy potential clients), but not at PokerStars. I haven't tried the PartyPoker software in quite some time, but when it came time to choose I found PokerStars a more pleasant interface in which to waste time on play money games.

    BUT, and this is very important, poker has been enjoying a popularity surge lately, especially Texas Hold-em. The number of poker shows on TV (even cable) a decade ago could have been counted on the fingers of one knee. Maybe there'd be something late night on ESPN 2, sandwiched in between Powder Puff BMX and Curling. Now you have poker shows on Travel channel, Bravo, InHD, and more. It's quite possible that, gasp, poker is a fad, and as more and more people realize they really suck at it, the fad is receding. Perhaps the money is going back to sports betting, going back to more traditional casino gaming (blackjack, roulette), or perhaps it's going to pay for $3 a gallon gasoline.

    I definitely wouldn't take this article as an indicator of industry troubles as a whole, but it would be useful as a warning to watch for shifts in consumer gaming patterns across the industry.

    --
    Start a happiness pandemic
  2. Because gambling is ... by waynegoode · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps people finally realized that gambling is a tax on greed and poor math skills.

    1. Re:Because gambling is ... by ranton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You didnt understand what the GP post meant regarding the skill involved in Poker. Poker is different from most gambling because you are not playing against the dealer, you are playing against the other players. In almost any form of gambling you will eventually lose money because the odds are set by the casino. But the only thing you have to beat in online poker is the rake.

      If you can win more money from your opponents than the casinos rakes in on each hand, then you WILL make money at poker. There are plenty of people who make a living off of poker. I know of two friends who are paying their way through college with online poker (one still gets over half of the money from student loans). I dont make that much money, but I havent ever had a stretch of more than a couple days where I havent increased my money online.

      You CAN make money from playing poker, it is not gambling in the sense that you can beat the system in poker. You just have to have some skill, and a bank roll big enough to absorb losses from a few bad beats.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  3. One Reason by tktk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Why have you stopped playing?

    Maybe because the regular players have gone broke?

  4. Gambling down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trust.

    That's why it's down. I'm not talking about trusting your online casino of choice, or trusting that you will receive your money from your payment processor. I'm talking about trusting your fellow players.

    The big money in online poker isn't from reading a book and playing off of statistics charts and pot odds. It's not in learning to read into your counterparts bets. It's in cheating.

    Not the hack-the-server-to-see-everyone's-cards cheating, or reverse engineering their randomization algorithms. It's in playing 6 players on a 10-hand table and having everyone know what everyone else has.

    The odds on your pocket jacks suddenly go way down once you know one of your other players has a jack. Also, you are able to control the table much more effectively with many people acting as one. Joe-sixpack might call you for $10 with his board pair, but he is much less likely if it's going to cost him $40. Also, when you know you have the winning cards, you can milk the rest of the players by raising once around the table and raising after your targets have called.

    The game is entirely different and there are numerous other rulesets and strategies you can employ when you have more knowledge about the cards on the table than other people.

    Sure, a "good" poker player can beat a bot or a statistical player any day of the week. However, the best player out there can't beat an entire table sharing information and playing for the same goal. Yes, the online casinos try and detect this collusion and generally the worst they do is ban players from playing together at the same table. I'm sure many Slashdoters can figure out how you get around any type of detection the casinos can through out.

    I know I did.