Poker has grown immensely from its humble beginnings in local card rooms to become a multibillion-dollar business and a more universally enjoyed hobby in the modern day. There is evidence to suggest that this expansion began more than two centuries ago and has intensified in recent decades.
From internet live casinos, like the ones available at Casino USA, to dozens of high-profile tournaments, the game now draws quite a bit of attention from all around the globe.
How It All Started
Poker’s exact origin is unknown; however, many experts place the modern iteration’s birthplace in the South. There were several other card games played at the time, but the most popular one was the variant using a standard deck of 52 cards.
Sometime about 1850, the standard deck of five cards expanded into a drawing game, allowing players to improve their hands via careful planning and card selection. With the proliferation of French decks with all four suits, it was necessary to revise the hand rankings to account for flushes and straights. These are still in common usage today and show that the game has strong ties to a variant of the French game “Poque”.
During the period of the American Civil War, poker’s popularity skyrocketed. Soldiers from both the north and the south participated in the game in equal numbers. Alternate iterations of the game were developed throughout that period. When the fighting stopped, the returning troops brought poker back with them, and its popularity soared throughout the nation.
Casinos and the Poker Boom
When the Dune staged a poker event in 1969, poker was officially introduced to the Las Vegas Strip for the first time. The event was so successful that it attracted the attention of Las Vegas casino owners. At long last, poker had made its long-awaited, highly-anticipated, and officially-hailed debut in the commercial gaming industry.
There was a continuation of poker’s popularity boom throughout the ’80s and ’90s, with the game’s meteoric rise commencing in the late ’90s with the arrival of online casinos. This freed poker enthusiasts from the need to go to casinos to get their game on.
Because of the accessibility and simplicity of practice that the internet provided, poker’s average skill level rose as more people began playing. It was quite convenient that they could do all of this without leaving their houses.
Even more enticingly, several of the largest online poker rooms have made partnerships with the organizers of the most prestigious live poker tournaments. This was a novel way for them to allow their players the opportunity to earn their way to such events for a fraction of the normal buy-in.
The Contribution of Poker Tournaments
As a result of the success of the first World Series of Poker, several other, more contemporary events quickly gained popularity among American players. A slew of new poker circuits, such as the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour, emerged in response to the game’s meteoric growing acceptance.
When 2003 rolled around, poker tournaments suddenly became a major arena in which to show one’s mettle. This development may be primarily attributed to the increasing number of online satellite events, where the top prize is a guaranteed entry into a real-life poker tournament.
The International Federation of Poker, headquartered in Switzerland, was established as the game’s governing organization in 2009. This further proved how deeply entwined the game had become with modern entertainment culture.
2011’s Black Friday and the Resurgence of Modern Poker
Without a doubt, Black Friday was the worst day in poker’s long and storied history in the United States. In an unprecedented move against online poker companies, the Department of Justice cracked down on the industry on April 15th, 2011.
It has taken a long time for the online poker industry in the United States to recover from the effects of Black Friday. Nonetheless, a few jurisdictions have reinstated internet poker’s legal status.
During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people also turned to online poker as a kind of diversion. There seems to have been something of a second poker boom as a direct result of the pandemic, with reports of a considerable increase in the number of new accounts created by the occurrence.
Poker as a Sport
In recent years, the idea of sports has migrated from the real world to the virtual one. Poker as a sport is a distinct possibility, especially given the growing prominence of such things as eSports in the public consciousness throughout the world.
The rise of online poker has helped to popularize the game all around the globe and cement the game’s status as a serious competitive endeavor. Our current understanding of poker bridges the gap between “table game” and “eSport,” attracting a worldwide professional audience.
Its ascent to prominence in the digital realm means that it will always vary from traditional sports played in the real world, but these distinctions are part of the appeal of gamers for players and viewers alike.
To be fair, however, the question of whether it qualifies as a “real” sport is largely up to interpretation. Even if the argument has been going on for a while and is only becoming louder as poker players elevate the game’s stature, it’s still amazing that the level of discourse is even possible. For the game of online poker as a whole, this decade will go down in history as a defining one. All parties involved, from organizers to athletes to spectators, are certain that the sport is on an upward trend and will continue to flourish in the years to come.