I don't agree with him, do you? He is right there in Las Vegas and has toured all the poker rooms. However, I think there will be a slow down online caused by the laws but I think home games and casino poker will expand over the next few years. The whole poker industry: books, tournaments, television will grow.

The fourteen to seventeen year olds are playing Texas Hold 'em for serious money. The colleges are turning out more and more serious Hold 'em players. Cactus Jack is usuall6 right about what he will bet on but he is wrong this time. Poker is growing.

it has probably hit a peak or is close to it. it will remain much bigger than it was 5 years ago though.

I would be surprised if the US market grew much if any over the next few years.

It's difficult to tell - in the US things may look tough but in Europe and Asia the boom goes on.

According to Poker Site Scout the numbers of cash game players on the top 7 online sites as at 1st September 2006 averaged a total of 24000 players or so.

Today the average nos. for the top 7 sites total just over 27000 players.

So that's 12% growth in 9 months despite the best efforts of Frist et al.

I think you can plan on good poker games being around for a while yet

The WSOP ME represents a tiny fraction of the world's players. Given the relatively large commitment to get into that event, it's possible that the event would not necessarily grow or shrink in accordance with the player-base as a whole. I would think that the ME grows or shrinks according to the successful player-base for the most part (excepting the ultra-rich who want to "play", of course).

A better count of how many people play moderately seriously might be obtained by polling casinos, cardrooms, and online sites.

One would think that poker periodicals might have some passing interest in this and perform the research on their and our behalf - cardplayer.com or bluffmagazine.com, anyone?