The last poker boom worthy of the name took place in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP Main Event from an $80 satellite. We’re approximating that amount because numerous credible sources maintain that Moneymaker’s satellite entry was anything from $30 to $100, but either way, his victory transformed the game.  

The 2003 Poker Boom was unprecedented and came about for many reasons. Poker had long been ready to explode and the combination of online poker along with other factors such as companies like the World Poker Tour and the original PartyPoker brand growing were huge. In retrospect, the original poker boom was due to Mike Sexton’s legacy as much as it was Chris Moneymaker’s success at the felt.  

So could another, perhaps even bigger ‘poker boom’ be coming in 2021?  

If it feels an odd question to ask in the middle of a Coronavirus pandemic, that’s probably because it is, but it’s not necessarily the wrong one. Live poker has always been something of a loss leader, and live festivals create the biggest of those losses. As such, when the COVID-19 restrictions took a firm grip on live poker back in the Spring of this year, that put poker in something of a quandary.