Recession and Poker...

Do you think that the economy is affecting gambling in general? I went to the track with my father in law last week... and saw many more people there than I have in the past. I realize it was a holiday week, but it got me thinking. With more people out of work, do you think more are trying to after what they think of as the "easy money?" I am not sure if there is a way to monitor the monthly amount of hands on poker systems, but I'd be curious as to whether the raw numbers have gone up...

I think the slot players are the ones sitting on the sidelines. Vegas is hurting cause of it. But for other forms of gambling, I don't know. Interesting note though, during the great depression sporting events attendance skyrocketed. Where there sporting events(horse racing,baseball ect..) there's gambling.

MATTYGIT said:

Do you think that the economy is affecting gambling in general? I went to the track with my father in law last week... and saw many more people there than I have in the past. I realize it was a holiday week, but it got me thinking. With more people out of work, do you think more are trying to after what they think of as the "easy money?" I am not sure if there is a way to monitor the monthly amount of hands on poker systems, but I'd be curious as to whether the raw numbers have gone up...

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Don't know about poker, online or otherwise, but according to the Public Gaming Research Institute in an article attributed to ABC Nightline regarding lotteries:

"Housing is in a slump, jobs are disappearing and the stock market is tumbling. But 29 of the 42 states with lotteries are seeing sales jump. At least 25 have set new records for the fiscal year. Illinois sold more than $2 billion worth for the first time in their lottery's 33-year history." [http://www.publicgaming.com/index.p...h-times&catid=25:worldwide-lottery&Itemid=50]

There might well be a similar upswing in online gamling, especially at the micro-stakes levels. However, since buying a lottery ticket requires very little time, no skill and very little thinking and poker requires time, a certain amount of skill and cognitive processes, there may be no correlation at all. However, the lottery mentality would go a long way towards explaining the epidemic of donkism we see all the time.

1fernandez1 said:

every one wants to hit it big thats all even more so now!

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definitely. which is funny because most people lose money gambling. hahha

In my opinion "gambling" in general is doing much better. People are wanting to make the most of their money so they are attempting to get value out of it by gambling with it. Even if this is not the case, as bad as the economy is, people still want to have fun!

This month in bluff magazine, there's a good article about how it is affecting live tournaments and ring games at brick and mortar poker places (got mine yesterday). It basicaly said numbers are down at the large draw tournments unless TV is involved; casinos aren't expanding their card rooms right now, that it is important to look at the juice the management is taking. AND it said playing on the internet is the best deal....no waiting to play, lower juice, you can eat at home, no gas or car expense, no tipping the staff and the dealers never make mistakes, etc.

Numbers are up for sure, people love to gamble even in a "Recession" lawl.

Like Stars right now, is lagging like a biatch cuz its got like over 200,000 players online. Ive never seen this many, I dont think there were this many last xmas-new years time, but I could be wrong.

I think it causes more people to gamble, they try to get back what they lost in "secure" investments.
Even if you dont have alot people still gamble. Look at the Bingo halls, lottery tickets they have more than ever, and all the casinos going up everywhere. they aren't going to lose money by building something no one is doing. All the sites I play on seem to have more people on them also.