In a strange turn of events, online poker is as popular as it’s ever been. But for the same reasons online poker is now thriving, live poker is scrambling to figure out it’s future. To discuss how the pandemic has affected the entire poker industry, Ivonne Montealegre, Event Director of the Malta Poker Festival, joined our Becky Liggero Fontana for this week’s episode of The Long Con.

To understand the current moment in poker, you need to understand the last 20 years of it. “Poker has been the underdog always,” Montealegre said. “10 years ago, we had what is called the Chris Moneymaker Effect where this guy, an accountant from the U.S., Chris Moneymaker goes, qualifies to the World Series of Poker for nothing, for a few dollars, and ends up winning the World Series of Poker for millions of dollars. So that brought poker to the mainstream.”

But that surge in popularity didn’t last forever, and mostly due to legal issues. “Black Friday happened, and a lot of the U.S. market was shut down, and poker after that was never the same,” she noted. “We experienced very low revenues all across, where online casino was much more stronger than poker.”

But with everyone locked at home, online rooms are fuller than they’ve been in years. “It’s a second wave, it’s crazy, because I’m playing poker like crazy, everyone I know is playing poker because you can make a living out of live poker.”