The Poker Market Place Is Full Of Angels and Sharks

Internet Poker / Editor / 14 January 2008 / Leave a Comment

TO Bloomberg, the financial pages, and the story: "Top Poker Players Sometimes Short on Cash."

Yes, really. Sometimes poker player run out of money. But they can always borrow some.

Joe Saumarez-Smith, chief executive officer of Sports Gaming, a U.K. management consulting firm to the gaming industry, is in Las Vegas. He is watching a game of poker. "After a few minutes, one of the biggest names in the game, someone whose name you would recognize if you watched even a small amount of televised poker, came and greeted me like a long-lost friend."

And - get this: "This was somewhat odd. I had been introduced to him once, a couple of years earlier. He asked if he could borrow $200 because he was running short. This is someone who runs through tens of millions of dollars a year at the tables and for whom $200 is pretty much a rounding error. I politely declined and he went off to do a bit more 'nipping' as borrowing from fellow players is commonly termed."

You didn't lend it to him? Fair enough, Mr Suamarez-Smith. But as a writer was not this the chance to be involved, by proxy, in a professional poker game? And for a mere $200.

He notes: "When watching `High Stakes Poker' or the World Series of Poker on television it's easy to assume that all these people with mountains of chips in front of them are millionaires and living the American poker dream. The sad reality is that a reasonable number of them are broke or, even worse, deep in debt to their fellow players, banks and loan sharks."

You - shock of shocks - mean they don't all win? Our writer is in no need of new material, not when he is breaking news of this magnitude.

Nolan Dalla, media director of the World Series of Poker, and a former semiprofessional poker player and sports gambler, says: "It is almost inevitable that if you play poker for many years, then variance will catch up with you. The scale of players being backed to play is now much bigger than it ever used to be. But you also have to think that poker economy is only so big, and it does not have enough money in it to sustain the number of players who aspire to be professionals.''

It's a market place. Buyers and sellers. Winners and losers. Have and have notes. The aim is to ahead of the market.

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