If poker were fully legalized nationwide here in the U.S. and there was a poker boom, it would be nothing like the original poker boom when the popularity of poker skyrocketed and players all over the world seemed to start playing online poker all at once. In fact, I won't say if, but when, because I'm trying to remain positive. When nationwide poker legislation is passed, I don't think that we, here in the U.S., would be the ones to notice it.
Think about what happened to the poker world on Black Friday. The "big three" poker sites were pushed out of the U.S. market. To us here in the U.S., it may have been devastating. But to the rest of the international poker world, life kept right on going. We've been lamenting the loss of Stars and Tilt, but the rest of the world has continued playing on them as if Black Friday never happened. So the reintroduction of PokerStars and Full Tilt to the U.S. market is not going to generate a tidal wave of new international players. And for the most part, U.S. players have continued on making due with whatever sites have been available to us, the whole while wishing we could play on Stars and Tilt again. We're not likely to see an rush of international players eager to join BOL or ACR. We may see a few new American players among those that have been wary of online poker after seeing what happened on Black Friday, but probably not enough to be considered a boom. So we're not likely to see a big boom here in America. But the rest of the world that has been able to continue playing on Full Tilt and PorkerStars over the last few years will likely notice a large influx of American players returning to them. Even then, and even with the U.S. being such a large market, when compared to the rest of the world, I don't know if it will be enough to be considered a boom from their perspective.
