Poker Boom Won’t Go Bust

	Put yourself in their shoes before you decide the best way to take their shirt. David Sklansky

A study completed by consulting firm MECN focuses on one of the hottest topics in the gambling industry – online poker.

The popularity of poker games online has grown tremendously over the past few years.

The reason for this growth is mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, the newly televised poker tournaments like the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker have introduced the concept across the globe, but the other reason is that as new players become aware of it, they come to realize online poker is less intimidating then casino rooms or even private poker games.

The success story of online poker began some years ago, and as Martin Oelbermann, co-author of the study, explains "Online poker is the perfect symbiosis of two mega trends in gambling: online gambling and poker."

• The amount gambled on poker websites around the world in 2005 is estimated to be more than USD 60 billion.
• More than 60% of the industry experts surveyed believe that online poker will be the dominant offer in online gambling in 2-3 years.
• 75% of the industry experts surveyed believe that the global annual rake/commission in the 2-3 years will be more than USD 4 billion.

The full report can be found at www.poker.mcen.net

Big Business

Britain accounts for 20 per cent of the £50 million staked on poker sites around the world each day. And that’s not just the staff at PokerPlayer.

Online site Paradise Poker was recently sold for about $300 million, and whispers of a poker site with an estimated evaluation between $4 billion and USD 8 billion are making online poker a business to watch closely.

One area of growth appears to be Russia or the Russian Federation, as it is now known with its huge population waiting to be tapped into the poker playing market.

Poker is also expanding offline as well as online. PokerPlayer and InsideEdge magazines lead the way in this country whilst in the U.S a poker book boom is underway as the thirst for knowledge overtakes what the market can offer.

U.S publishing houses are reporting a record ten-fold increase in poker books and USA Today has listed the total number of poker books due to hit shelves this year at 60.

Big names in the poker publishing business include New York City’s Cardoza Publishing, Huntington Press, and the highly successful Two Plus Two Publishing, run by authors Mason Malmuth and David Sklansky.

The two poker writers have apparently penned more than half of the 43 books released by the company, which include Sklansky’s "Hold’em Poker" and "Harrington on Hold’em," and are behind Two Plus Two Publishing’s reputation for producing the top poker books in the industry. They are expecting to sell approximately 500,000 books this year.

Pro-based books due to be released this year include Huntington Press’ next release, Kill Phil by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson. The strategy book is aimed at beginners, and is named for the apparent dominance of the poker circuit by the three Phil’s; Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, and Phil Gordon. Phil Hellmuth has endorsed the strategies outlined in the book, is featured on the cover and wrote the foreword.