Poker borders

ullu

I'm just wondering why online poker has taken off in certain countries and not others. Obviously it's huge in the US, UK, Ireland, Sweden and Norway to name a few but why has it not taken off in such a way in places like Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece etc? Another market that I remember being mentioned recently was Japan. There's a national poker players association but no sign of a Japanese specific site and I've never seen or heard of a Japanese pro. Surely that's a huge market that hasn't been tapped into, assuming it's legal to play online there.

kincsem

Is it a combination of dark winters, high GNP / disposable income, population densities, good transport, good IT infrastructure, and religious tolerance?
I think horse racing is big in Japan but I don't know if there is much betting.
Poker should be big in China as they like to gamble, but incomes are probably a bit tight at present.
Poker seems to be an English speaking game. The Scandies could lose and find us with the Queen's English.

Lafortezza

There is major problems with credit card fraud in the middle and far east. It's a huge market there but none of the big sites have yet figured out how to take advantage and also to minimize the financial risks.

Another problem is how to integrate asian languages and currencies into the current software and to make it all work smoothly.

Culchie

The Japanese culture is very risk adverse culture as well.

Read somewhere a couple of years ago that the average American dies owing $25000 to a combination of debtors (banks, credit card, car finance etc...) whilst the average Japanese person dies with $110000 to their name, in the black.

They were giving interest free loans out for the best part of ten years trying to kick start the economy as well with very limited success.

Dub13

As for Spain, Italy, Greece etc well if you had hot chicks here like they do over there you would not be playing poker with Culchie,Rounders etc etc.

ditpoker

Dub13 wrote:

As for Spain, Italy, Greece etc well if you had hot chicks here like they do over there you would not be playing poker with Culchie,Rounders etc etc.

where do i make my submission for post of the year?? (maybe still behind Mr.FLibble's card washing antics but def up there with the best!)

ionapaul

Dub13 wrote:

As for Spain, Italy, Greece etc well if you had hot chicks here like they do over there you would not be playing poker with Culchie,Rounders etc etc.

Great stuff...glad you resisted the dark side and didn't include my name on that list of shame...!

Dub13

Not a chance Paul....you have to be good looking/a ladies man to be in FOS.