Poker Update – The acceptance, regulation and legitimisation of poker has been occurring throughout some Asian nations in recent years, while debate on the game has hotted up in others.
Generally, however, there has been a trend towards poker being rightfully viewed as more than just ‘gambling’. This has been seen by the growing number of large scale poker event being held in countries like the Philippines, Macau and South Korea, as well as recent political statements in Japan and Taiwan for poker and gaming in general.
But could you really ever imagine the possibility of a WPT Tokyo or an APPT Taipei? How about a WSOP Orient? (Which I named only because WSOP Asia is remarkably similar to the already existing WSOP Asia Pacific).
There is no point embellishing the potential of such events going forward. The facts are that most of these events, or any similar sort of poker events will occur anytime soon, at least not until fruitful action occurs in countries like Taiwan and Japan.
Still though, the potential for such action to occur in the near future is certainly possible, which would increase the attraction of the region to major poker promoters who may wish to host poker events there.
East Asia has a lot of upsides that could allow for it to play host to some of the highest profile poker events. Firstly, there’s the sheer amount of people who live in the region. South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have a combined population of over 200 million, and they are just three countries out of many.
The Philippines, another nation in the region, has just below 95 million inhabitants, while most other Southeast Asian nations also have populations in the tens of millions. Of course, one cannot forget China, which boasts a massive population of 1.34 billion people.
While there are major political differences between China and counties like Japan and Taiwan that are often the source of deep seated conflict, China’s huge population still cannot be overlooked when talking about poker.
