Poker Growth

[The Player]

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.

[AndrewT]

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.

[The Player]

...yeah thats another way lol!

[Delboy]

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

[tikay]

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.

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.

[tikay]

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

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?........