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The outbreak of COVID-19 has severely impacted the majority of businesses across the world. People have been forced to stay indoors as much as they can and follow the social distancing protocols. Amidst social distancing and lockdown times, the gaming vertical came with a different picture. The online games caught the attention of everyone during the pandemic and helped people to entertain themselves. And among the online games, the online poker boom has been surprisingly amazing.
Lately, there has been a spike in the interest in “online poker” on Google Trends. In fact, it appears to be an all-time high interest in the previous five years. It indeed shows that there is an online poker boom. This boom could be the result of the coronavirus and social distancing but the question is - Will it last until the situation is back to normal or stay beyond it?
Well, to fully understand this, we will have to know a few other things. First, let us know what led to the online poker boom.
COVID-19 forced everyone to cancel events all across the globe and it even closed down land-based casinos. Hence, the situation created a big scope for online gaming platforms to engage with a larger number of audiences who were earlier not hooked on games like online poker.
Another thing that we need to know is who is participating in the online poker games currently?
Post outbreak of COVID-19, it has been observed that online poker gaming mainly involved live poker pros and recreational live players. While live poker pros are the professionals in poker, the recreational live players are the ones who come to play this game for fun, either with family or friends. As these players are stuck at their places for an extended tenure and have a liking for the online poker boom, they have found this online game as an easy solution to drive their attention away from the current scenario. Interestingly, these players are spending more time in playing poker than before.
Alongside the live poker pros and recreational live players, the general population also started playing online poker just to have fun. These players who usually don’t play this game are seen joining the poker tournaments to try their luck. This crowd has also amplified online poker engagement.
What else led to the online poker boom in the gaming industry?
Online poker gaming also saw a remarkable hike in the player count due to various other factors. Many poker rooms are offering cheaper tournaments to new players to increase engagement. Various new poker tournaments are been organized by iGaming businesses to engage more with the players on their platforms.
Likewise, to add convenience to all types of poker players, the popular poker software provider, and poker game development company, Mobzway is also offering private room choices for the existing iGaming ventures so that they can leverage these rooms to scale up engagement. Many land-based casinos have also gone online with one or the other poker game software to continue catering to their existing player's seamless gaming experience.
How the future of online poker looks like?
There’s no decline expected in online poker until we are fully out of this pandemic. Anticipations are also that we may also not witness the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in the near future. But you can expect that WSOP can likely go online and the poker players will be seen battling for Poker wins sitting at their homes.
Likewise, other forms of Poker tournaments may also be organized online. But it won’t be the end of the land-based Poker era, rather, a rise in the count of poker engagement on online platforms. It may also happen that a few players may find the online versions of poker more suitable to their lifestyles and exit the live casinos.
This may happen because online poker comes with a lot of advantages, such as:
- 24 X 7 poker games available
- No need to travel to the casino
- Availability of shorter sessions and games as per your needs
- The Benefit of playing more hands in the same time frame
- Next-gen graphics that take your gaming adventure nearest to reality & more
Conclusion
The future of the online poker boom certainly looks bright and there are chances that by the time the pandemic is gone, the industry may take a major leap as compared to the corresponding year. However, a sudden leap month on month post-pandemic will be mere injustice.
