How poker changed after Black Friday
On the 4th anniversary of Black Friday, Barry Carter looks at how much the industry has changed since the day that shook poker.
It was the day poker got serious.
I'd been working in poker for about five years before April 15, 2011. The poker industry before Black Friday was indistinguishable from the one we know today.
I was at Dusk Till Dawn when we came face to face with those FBI warnings. I was working on a PartyPoker TV show, which was being played by a bunch of Full Tilt and PokerStars pros. I think I was in the most interesting place in the world at that moment, as I had a snapshot of the entire industry from recreational players, TV presenters, online operators, TV pros and sponsored professionals, all in the same room. There was a collective sense of disbelief which turned to a desperate need for answers, with an overall sense of pessimism about the future of the game.
I had my own runbad story with Black Friday too. After almost two years of working on it, Jared Tendler and I released The Mental Game of Poker on….you’ve guessed it, Black Friday. In the morning we sold 100 copies and were so excited by a promising early start. Then our joy turned to despair when it became apparent that we released a poker book on the worst day in history to do so. We didn’t sell another copy for about a week.
We thought it was the end for poker. Thankfully it wasn’t, but the industry has changed forever.
The industry has changed
One interesting barometer for what the poker industry was like before and after Black Friday is the Bluff Power 20, which is an annual industry poll of the 20 most influential people in poker. The lists before Black Friday were made up almost entirely of famous players and staff from the live and televised side of the game. Today the list is made up mostly of CEOs, politicians, online operators and usually only one or two players.
Poker is much more professional now. It was very much a handshake industry before it (It still is to some extent) but today regulation and avoiding another day like April 15, 2011 is at the heart of most of the major operators in the industry.
We are all much more careful with our money. I never like to keep too much of any money in a poker account, eWallet or even a bank account since Black Friday. We have all been confronted with the fact that lawmakers might try and stop us from playing poker where we live, so as such keeping our entire bankrolls in any one account seems out of the question.
Likewise, a lot of money was thrown around in poker before Black Friday, perhaps best exemplified by the sheer number of sponsored professionals there were at the time. Today there are hardly any, and the players who are sponsored have vastly different roles and responsibilities, which are almost like a full time job rather than a free pass to play poker.
We survived the worst
Thankfully many parts of the industry have come out of the other end of Black Friday stronger than ever. PokerStars lost their biggest single market, yet continually boast online events that shatter attendance records. Live poker has gone from strength to strength, breaking record after record, and is gearing up for a WSOP event this year expected to attract over 20,000 entries.
The poker economy is so strong we have even managed to accomodate two $1 million buy-in events and a thriving Super High Roller scene. Meanwhile we are all excited and hoping innovations like Twitch are going develop the game in new exciting ways.
Whenever I see someone start a thread saying the games have gotten unbeatable or that poker is dying, I always think back to Black Friday. We may never return to the boom years of 2003, but the good news is that we have probably been through our worst years too. The industry survived Black Friday, if we can do that, we can survive anything.
Where were you on Black Friday? How has poker changed for you personally in that time? Let us know in the comments.
