Yes, it's over and some insiders think the
online poker sites did not really do themselves any favors.
First the returning recreational players tended to get taken to the cleaners by more experienced players. That must leave a bad taste in the mouth and with increased financial insecurity, I doubt many will want to keep 'experimenting' with poker.
The second thing (that several pros have talked about) was everyone saturating the market with this or that series or promotions. There is just so much money in the poker ecosystem and the fact that Covid-19 lay offs drove business for fairly brief window was ignoring the fact that the world was facing a severe financial tightening.
My guess would be any long term increases due to Covid-19 will be negligible unless the online sites find some exciting products to entice new customers and that would appear fairly unlikely.
In the longer term I think poker also needs to look at how it will promote itself to an expanding market. The televised live events should be a big draw to new players, the EPT and
wsop being the biggest, but the WSOP live is now stuck behind PokerGo's paywall.
I am a broken record on this but it was/is a huge mistake. The broader public is not going to ante up a subscription to watch the WSOP so all PokerGo has done is make money off a closed market - so therefore a lack of interest and new customers to poker.
The biggest and most prestigious poker event of the year hidden from view is not a smart long term strategy