Difficult question to get an accurate answer to. I do not have a clue how many are playing LIVE in each country (seems popular in the UK these days). Numbers in Canada at LIVE brick & mortar establishments has dropped off considerably (this is an understatement).
I am guessing lots of our answers are coming from how many entrants there are in the
freerolls online from different countries around the world....
It is easier to figure out what countries are doing the best in poker today. In online MTT play it is not from a country with the most people playing....
sweden is number 1 on the leaderboards these days, followed by the U.K., Russia, Canada & Hungary. Brazil in the 6th spot & the U.S.A. has fallen to 9th (although they still have the highest overall total cashes for tracked, ranked players at a total of $1.9 Billion!!! (Canada in 2nd with $811 Million)
Where does poker seem to be growing and becoming more popular... This is a question that
partypoker &
pokerstars could answer I am sure. On Partypoker I see regular growth but this is likely due to players coming over from Pokerstars. I also notice that some weeks (months) you will see many players from a certain country (this past week or two it seemed like there were many new acounts from Germany on the tables).
I wonder if there will ever be another BOOM in the poker industry... I sure hope so but honestly seems unlikely to me.