Originally posted on 06/15/2014:
Perfectly said.
I go to Turning Stone & Foxwoods and while they're both consistently still busy, it's still nothing like the poker halcyon days where every recreational Joe was playing because of the EASE of moving money on and off the online sites. 100% this spilled over to the B&M's poker rooms. Player pool shrunk obviously b/c of the difficulty of moving the money around, not disinterest in the game itself.
I know a lot of people are convinced poker has seen its biggest boom never to be repeated, but I'd sure like to see what would happen in a legal environment w/trusted sites with money easily transferred around (again). I play on a Turning Stone online site, for example, get comps in their physical casino... c'mon, this isn't rocket science.
I think the casinos stupidity & greed manifests itself when they look at the huge numbers a PokerStars rakes in and they wrongly conclude that's money that they're losing in their B&M. Have to keep them outta the market... we'll get that money! WRONG. Not how it works, morons.
And don't get me started on the politicians fukked up $$$ angle......