Is poker losing its appeal to younger players?

With a surprisingly low turnout in the Main Event for 21-25 year olds, is poker at risk of stagnating with a lack of new blood?

The Main Event looks like it is shaping up to be a very positive affair, with increased numbers, fascinating stories and an entertaining final table. However, a worrying stat was released this week by the WSOP, which showed the average age of the participants in the Main Event this year:

This trend should be one of the most concerning ones for the future of poker IMO. Black Friday is wiping out the younger age players. pic.twitter.com/cPTcHrJpCj

— gN Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) July 17, 2017

Less than 5% of the participants this year were in the 21-25 year old aged bracket. Given the prevailing theme of poker since the boom was that it was a game of Internet whizz kids dropping out of college to crush the game, this is a very alarming statistic.

Black Friday

Most of the players are around their early 30s, which roughly reflects the average age of somebody in the US. However, in the modern poker era it seems common sense that there should be a bias towards the younger players. There was once a time when Phil Hellmuth’s youngest champion record kept getting broken and we asked if an older player could ever win the Main Event again? Now we have record breaking Seniors events but a mere 347 college age players.

The obvious answer as to why this is happening is Black Friday. The trope of the college kid becoming a millionaire poker pro overnight came about because poker was so accessible to younger players since the advent of online poker. They were digital natives, experienced in fast decisions from video games, had time on their hands in college, could play from the comfort of their dorm and, unlike live poker, could start their careers for cheaply in freerolls and micro stakes.

However, since Black Friday online poker is not accessible to most Americans, the sites are tougher in the few places that offer it and there is a stigma and uncertainty about the legality of the game. Young poker players can’t win their Main Event seat online, nor can they become a pro overnight. With that in mind, of course we wont be seeing much growth in 21-25 year-olds with a spare $10,000 to play in the Main Event. These days you are more likely to see the same young talents making millions without any startup costs making YouTube videos, which is ironic given how poker has only just caught up to that particular trend.

Poker as an eSport

These statistics are worrying to some because it seems like a lot of investment has recently gone into poker being presented as an eSport. The assumption there is that the average Twitch viewer is a Millennial. From all that I have seen, the average gamer is probably a bit older than they are presented. Plenty of them are also in their 30s, having been the first players to grow up in a time when gaming was a bigger industry than Hollywood.

It’s by no means an apples-to-apples comparison, because we are an online poker focussed site and mostly Europe facing, but by contrast PokerStrategy.com’s visitors this last year were 50% aged 25-34, much like the WSOP, but with almost 25% of our visitors aged between 18-24. So in regions where online poker is much more prevalent, so are the younger players.

Maybe it is how things should be that people who are just in their 20s are not throwing down $10,000 to play a single tournament, and likewise perhaps we should be celebrating how accessible and popular the game is with older players. Not being able to play $10k events is not a definitive sign poker is not growing with younger players, but it certainly is a statistic we should be keeping an eye on.

Do you think poker is losing appeal with younger players? Let us know in the comments: