blonde poker forum

This may sound like a really daft request... but here goes.

Due to the sheer size of this forum I'm hoping there are people here who can help me. I'm trying to see the growth of online poker through the years, from 2000 to 2007.

Basically if anyone knows of any sites that show how online pokers grown over the years (with figures) I'd greatly appreciate some direction.

I need something along the lines of:

Poker rooms in 2000, 2001, 2002 etc...
online poker players in 2000, 2001, 2002 etc...

various details like the above are what I'm after

Thanks in advance guys

Pokerpulse used to be the place to track poker room numbers, but they seemed to give up a while ago and Poker Site Scout is now the main place to track the stats.

So Pokerpulse may have old numbers and PSS new ones.

Thanks for that, I'll check them out :) ...

Google is useless as the word poker just brings up the obvious, regardless of what sentence its used in lol.

I've been looking for a site that simply says: In 2000 there were on average 10,000 online poker players worldwide, in 2001 there were on average 143,345 players online etc.

I cant find anywhere on the internet with this kind of information, there must be a stats site or review site thats has online poker milestones so to speak.

Maybe contact the sites Andrew mentioned directly - they might be willing to help?

:dontask:

Be careful of interpreting the stats you read on this.

Number of players.

If, say, there were 10 Online Poker Rooms in the world, & they all claimed to have 1 million registered players, how many players do you think that would aggregate to? 3 million, 4 million, who knows? I must have Accounts with upwards of 20 sites - most of them dormant, mind. But I play 6 or 7 regularly.

Number of Online Rooms.

Thousands, but there is no official register, & these days, they are, possibly, going out of business faster than they are starting up.

There are no "official" stats for this, & anyone who claims to know the real numbers is whistling in the dark. Be careful.

Also......

If a site claimed, legitimately, to have 1,000 registered players, in truth, how many of those do you suppose are actually "active" players.

5%? 10%?

Not much more, I'd hazard a guess.

Beware hyped numbers!

I think I have six crypto accounts alone :). I use two.

Exactly!

I think if the industry gave a (self-serving) estimate, I'd divide it by 10, or even 20.

Looking up old company reports for sites that publish such as party may give some indication.

Yes, but very few are "quoted" companies, so don't give figures, (number of players I mean, not revenue) & even in the case of, say, Ladbrokes, their Annual Report gives away very little in the way of true stats, as it's commercially sensitive, & not required by the authorities & institutions.

As to Party Poker, well, with due respect to those fine people, I'd take anything they reported with a pinch of salt.

Agree completely, why I put some indication. As you have already stated any figures quoted will have been given a 'creative' touch. I think the poster needs to collate as much info as possible then use his own judgement

thanks to all your responses guys, I'll take note of this!

Although during my research I cam across a company claiming to have all the information i reqcuired... which was great! Until I found out it would cost me over £2000 to get it from them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not in need THAT much for it lol.

As I said before - NOBODY has that information. They may claim to, but they have not. Fact.


If you part with £2 mill or £200,000 or £20,000 or five bob - you ain't gonna get the info, because nobody has it or knows it - it's a number that's impossible to define.

How CAN they have?

How can ANYONE know how many sites I use, & thus how much double, triple or 22-tuple counting there would be?

How can ANYONE know how many poker accounts are dormant. (Though I bet it's 95%+). I must have a whole bunch of dormant accounts, & so have most players.

There's none so blind......

Thats not entirely true, some companies acumulate figures for internal profit progression and market forcasting. This i swhy companies charge for this information, its not public knowledge. Remember when you join a room or make a transaction big brother is watching you! lol. The data exists and there are companies that are paid very highly to accumulate this information, its how big companies get bigger and smaller companies get more creative... the big boys have an accurate hindsite, the small guys that are still around are simply more in touch with the specified market.

Dont get me wrong, theres no whole in the system where this data goes through, everything is very much above board... its just how the industry works. Companies wont simply ask for figures and take word of mouth as proof... these companies undertake deep and indepth studies. Thats no to say that there is a report with the exact (down to one) number of poker players day to day etc but it does mean that given a variety of different information including multiple account figures and financial transaction that a pretty accurate figure can be aqcuired.

Now I feel like i'm giving a lesson into the world of marketing lol... sorry guys I tend to ramble on a bit.

 ;kneelsucker;

Sir, I feel you are, how shall I say, err...... sort of, well, wrong.

They can "accumulate figures" & "market forecast" all they want.

They have no way of knowing how many "live" Poker Accounts there are. How CAN they?

If companies or individuals are gullible enough to pay for this nonsense masquerading as facts, well, there you have the justification for Mr Smart Ass selling the so called "figures".

There's one born every minute, & someone there ready to sell junk to them. (And I am not, of course, referring to you!).

lol.... interesting.

I think it is you who is a little mis-led if you honestly think that there is no way of taking a numerable amount of figures (which obviously exist) and compiling them to create a result.

Think about what your saying "They have no way of knowing how many "live" Poker Accounts there are. How CAN they?" its simple.... when you register for poker online you give a certain amount of detail, ignoring the fact that people create duff accounts, when you create a cash account you must provide certain information. Amongst this information is financial info.... now each company you use to make a transaction online has a record and a history of it.... even if you were to use 30+ different payment methods there is still a trail.

so between a group of companies your entire history of online payments and withdrawels is kept. That I'm sure you wont disagree with....

so next you take other companies who purchase these datasets and accumulate them into "transactions per household" thus giving an accurate figure of people playing poker. This is not only not "wrong" its been done for years.

A live poker account is simply an account with a recent transaction.

I obviously do not know what industry you work in and i wont presume to but I've worked with companies who do this.

So in closing, yes there is one born every minute but those who believe that almost everything they do isn't noted or recorded somewhere is the one born every minute in my eyes.

People who run poker rooms know how many players (active or dormant) they have and how much they rake. Publicly listed companies have to publish this info for everyone to see - any of you can go and look up how much rake Party earned last quarter, what the average yield for each player was, and how many new players signed up.

You can use the info from the public companies as a guide to get approximate figures for other networks because a) you can tell how many people are playing on a poker network just from looking at the lobby and b) all networks rake the tables at roughly the same rate, so you can extrapolate.

Individual skins on a network are different, as you can't tell from, say, looking at the iPoker network how many players are Blonde, or Blue Square or whoever. You can't get the info unless someone on the inside tells you.

...yeah thats another way lol!

Are  you doing this for an article or a thesis?

IMHO people aren't really interested in numbers anyway. I would try writing about the growth of poker through the eyes of Players who played before and during the internet, how its effected their lifestyle, family life, bank balance etc..... you can then throw in a few 'facts' like  "at any one time you can find 100,000 players on full tilt", or "Europe busiest Poker Forum now has 7,000 members"for illustrative purposes, but stick to the human element.

as I say, Just MHO

As you wish......

so between a group of companies your entire history of online payments and withdrawels is kept. That I'm sure you wont disagree with....


Correct. But what makes you think that these Online Sites give accurate facts to would be buyers/compilers of such info? They are mostly unregulated, remember.

I obviously do not know what industry you work in and i wont presume to but I've worked with companies who do this.

I was Managing Director of a large company until I took early retirement just over 3 years ago. Since then, I've  worked pretty much full-time in the Poker business, as a Consultant (to Sporting Odds, Paradise & Sky Poker), TV Presenter (via William Hill, Poker 425), Prima (via Poker Night Live), & Sky Poker (via "Poker Week & "The Open"), Poker Journalist, & general dogs-body, & I own 25% of blondepoker, which has it's own Online Cardroom.

Of course every transaction we make is noted, that's a given. But faithfully reported & interpreted by those with self-interest? I think not.

Sites do not (on the face of it) encourage multi-accounts from the same person - but you & I both know examples of individuals who hold 6 or 7 Accounts on the same site.

We shall each move forward here with deeply entrenched views. If you want to believe the figures, good luck to you. I don't, & won't.

All I said was "beware, the figures ain't accurate". That remains my view.

And there we have the PERFECT answer.

Europe busiest Poker Forum now has 7,000 members

Which, to those of us who "interpret" figures means this. At some stage, 7,000 folks have signed up to blonde Forum. Does that mean blonde has 7,000 Members? Yes. Is it a true reflection of the blonde Membership? No! Divide by 10, or 20, & you are somewhere near.

Ditto the blonde Cardroom, bpc. I think around 5% of those who signed up actually play on the site. If we wanted that information made public, what figure do you think we'd give?........