Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2019 Edition

68 Sponsored by Casino City’s iGaming Pocket Directory Poker POKER Poker INDuSTrY oVerVIeW It’s been nearly 21 years since an unassuming amateur named Chris Moneymaker turned the world of poker upside down by coming out of nowhere to win the 2003 World Series of Poker Main event, thus igniting a worldwide poker boom. Since that time, online poker has certainly experienced its share of historic highs and lows. revenues grew at an astounding rate from 2000 to 2005, soaring from $82 million to more than $2 billion. But a combination of high-profile cheating scandals, the introduction of the unlawful Internet Gambling enforcement Act in the u.S., market segregation, and increased player fears regarding bots and unregulated technology stunted iPoker’s growth. According to Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC), online poker generated a global gross gaming yield of $4.99 billion in 2010, but that number fell to $4.54 billion in 2011 when PokerStars and Full Tilt were shut down in the u.S. on the day now infamously known as Black Friday. In the following three years, the GGY remained on a downward turn, plummeting to $3.87 billion in 2014 and $3.61 billion in 2015. In 2016, the numbers were still in decline, but falling at a much slower pace. Throughout 2017 and by the end of 2018, the industry finally started to show some signs of progress, although it was expected to only generate around 5% of the total global iGaming gross win in 2018, according to H2 Gambling Capital.