---

From Card Rooms To Online Tables: The Evolution of Poker In India

When one looks at poker today, it feels mainstream. The industry has grown tremendously in the last decade or so and no one can deny it. Even though online gaming has been around for a significant amount of time, online poker caught major steam in the last decade. The reason for this steady fast growth goes beyond just the popularity of the card game. 

We all know how popularity trends work—they come and go, but rarely have we seen something stick, given its impact on the lives of people it has attracted towards itself. Poker did that with its players and those who wanted to turn entrepreneurs in the real money gaming field. 

Poker had a spark and many saw it as a new lease of life, which would take them on an unconventional journey. For those who know, poker is the national card game of the United States of America, hence it doesn’t come as a surprise when their population plays the game with so much conviction. 

One may say, word travelled fast on poker, and the game caught the eye of many across the globe. When you think of India, poker got past the barricades of another notable card game like rummy, which flows in our veins. Festivals, get togethers, casual hangouts, rummy was present and played with utter delight. Poker made its way quietly and kept on pulling players into its fold—the charm of the card game was too hard to resist. 

Early Days

India has both live and online poker with both flourishing in their respective space. But both never had the tag of being ‘a legit source of income.’ Yes, you could be on a vacation or a business trip to Goa or Sikkim, and play your occasional cash games but the thought of travelling to these destinations for just playing poker was a very rare occurrence. 

Regulations for online and live poker in India, kept the industry on wafer thin ice. Online poker is not permitted in certain states, while casinos/poker rooms cannot crop up in most Indian states. While the expansion of poker may be restricted, the scope is not.

Live Poker

Not many saw promotions being held in live poker rooms, back in the day. Today the scene has changed. In today’s time, casinos are heavily promoting their cash game festivals and other promotions available like any other mainstream product would be.

Social media made it possible to reach out to a larger audience who are interested in the card game but remain alien to places where they can test their skills. There are monthly promotions, package offers, and even poker series which are held in the live poker rooms. Poker events which were held once in a while, became a regular deal. This was possible due as more players  and operators entered the poker space.

---

ALSO READ: Tips For Heads-up Poker

---

From a time when poker players were in hundreds to that number now running in thousands, live poker dramatically scaled up with players now looking forward to more than just cash games. The best examples I could add here are poker series like Deltin Poker Tournament (DPT), Baazi Poker Tour (BPT) and of course the massively popular India Poker Championship (IPC). 

Looking at DPT numbers, the inaugural edition had over 450 entries across the series, with ₹1.50 Crore disbursed in prize money. The Main Event had 102 entries vying for the ₹1 Crore GTD. Cut to the last edition of DPT held in October 2023, 700+ entries participated in the series with the Main Event witnessing 258 total entries fighting for a prize pool worth ₹1,16,10,000. A total of ₹2.5 Crore was distributed across the series in prizes. 

In the case of BPT, the maiden edition saw the Main Event champion, Puneet Dua take home ₹10 Lakh in prize money. And the 2022 edition of the series saw Nitin Arora add ₹42.70 Lakh to his bankroll from the Main Event victory. 

When it comes to IPC, the series made its debut in 2010, and saw Aditya Sushant ship the Main Event for over ₹6 Lakh from an entry pool of over 87. Think of the May 2022 edition and the Main Event title went to Siddhanth Kripalani for a sum of ₹39.72 Lakh. He beat an entry pool of 334 to nail the top spot.  

If numbers were proof, then the above prize money and entries tell a winning story. As per the registered data on Hendon Mob, there are 2,213 players who have at least one cash in live poker tournaments.

The same goes for online poker. What better than events like India Online Poker Championship (IOPC), Final Table Series (FTS), National Poker Series (NPS), Adda52 Online Poker Series (AOPS) to show how the industry is going from strength to strength. 

The first edition of IOPC landed on the virtual felts of Spartan Poker back in 2015 with an advertised guaranteed prize pool of ₹8.6 Lakh. As per recorded entries, in IOPC Jan 2018 edition had 1,470 total entries and Yash Brijwasi had a payday of ₹37.5 Lakh for shipping the Main Event.

Come to the last IOPC event held in June 2023, we had Utkarsh Vaish claim a prize money of ₹56.20 Lakh for his Main Event victory. The total number of entries in this marquee tournament stood at an impressive 4,871. 

A similar growth in numbers was observed in FTS, from the time it started in November 2020. Arjun Pasricha shipped the Main Event for ₹40 Lakh. The entry pool stood at 700. The series quickly became popular and the last edition (March 2023) saw a player pool of 648 battle it out for the Main Event trophy which was eventually claimed by lawyer-turned-pro Ashish Ahuja.

When it comes to NPS, the first edition was hosted in 2021. The series received 83,793 entries across 64 tournaments and generated a final prize pool worth ₹19 Crore. This number quickly escalated and the 2024 edition of the series saw 2.3 Lakh entries participating in 150 tournaments with the final prize pool crossing the ₹62 Crore mark.

Be it live or online, poker became a true force to reckon with. In an article published on Adgully.com, the number of gamers in India (as of 2023) across all platforms stood 444 Million, which was a remarkable 12.1% year-on-year growth. 

The real-money gaming industry was projected to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% between 2023-2028. These figures only further showcase the monumental interest in the gaming industry. As per custom market insights, the Indian online poker market will hit a valuation of $346 Billion by 2030. The growth story in India for online poker isn’t an easy walk in the park.

Apart from the regulatory hurdles, the Central government imposed a hefty 28% GST on online gaming including casinos and horse racing. This led to the immediate closure of many small and medium sized online poker operators in the industry. Many saw big players in the poker circuit lay off their staff and cut down on the prize pools offered among other measures.

When it comes to the evolution of poker in the country, we couldn’t just miss out on asking our players what they feel about the growth of the card game. Be it the tournament formats, number of entries, kind of players and professionals in the circuit, we have gathered some key insights from our players which draw light on the growth of poker. 

---

ALSO READ: Beginners Guide To Mixed Games In Poker

---

Tournaments: Then and Now

Ramesh Thotapalli who began playing back in 2010-2011, mentions how it was mainly Texas Hold’em tournaments which were held. He further highlighted, “Not many played Omaha back in the day which isn’t the case in the current time. There were only 80-100 active players grinding at that time and tourneys were restricted to the Kick Off, Main Event and High Roller.”

Guruprasad Gupta who started playing poker in 2014, shared how the tournaments back then were mostly freezeout events with low buy-ins and smaller guarantees. He further mentioned, “Back then we used to have a short late registration period and most of the events were low buy-ins and low guarantees with freezeout formats.

We used to play cautiously throughout. But nowadays all events come with massive guarantees and to surpass the initial prize pool we have rebuy/re-entry events and longer late registration periods.”

Guruprasad Gupta

The Adda52 Game Ambassador, Arun Sriram highlighted how the Indian poker circuit is catching up to the international formats offered which he sees as a positive sign. He added, “The options on offer in terms of MTTs have evolved over time for both online and offline. While NLH MTTs were the norm when I started, nowadays PLO, different PKO, timed tourneys and other exciting formats offer more options to players. The upcoming DPT in Goa is expected to host the first ever live Mystery Bounty event in India.”

Arun Sriram

Samay Singh Modi his thoughts about the tournaments hosted in the past as compared to now. He added, “Turbos, hyper turbos and progressive knockouts were introduced in online poker recently, as against in 2012 when he started playing poker. India had a standard format of poker tournaments. The formats on the Indian poker sites have evolved greatly.” 

Samay Singh Modi

Another veteran player Vineet Kumar shared his views on the tournament formats. He said, “Apart from No Limit Hold’em (NLH), now Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) has also gained popularity, so we have PLO and PLO bounty tournaments. Online poker platforms offer a wide range of formats, catering to different preferences and bankrolls. Late registration and re-entry periods allow flexibility for players.”

Vineet Kumar

“These days PLO 5 and PLO 6 have become more popular among cash game players. Online poker sites in India are now flooded with these PLO cash game tables. Major business to these online poker sites come from these cash tables running 24×7. Back when I started playing poker in 2012, the most common format was freezeout tournaments. Players would buy-in with a fixed amount of chips, and once they lost all their chips, they were eliminated. Rebuy and add-ons were less common.”

Entry pool and type of players

The CEO of Card52.com, Ramesh Thotapalli also reveals that back in the day very few people played poker. He said, “People mostly played for fun. Today the players are far more well equipped with theoretical aspects of the card game as opposed to the era when players learned mostly from their own experience and errors made than any kind of formal training. Many players from IITs and IIMs have taken up the game professionally.” 

Ramesh Thotapalli

Vinayak Bajaj shared how players were going by their own strategy earlier but in recent times, players are applying a mathematical approach to the game with softwares readily available to improve their gameplay. He further stated, “When it comes to the player pool, more players have joined the fold and older players have significantly improved their game. But the quality of the entry field remains a mixed bag with new but less experienced players grinding.”

Vinayak Bajaj

Sriram dived into the player pool of online tourneys. He said, “The field has become tougher and the skill of the top players has gone many notches higher. This is reflected in the international circuit too where Indians are shipping more events than before across countries.”

Kumar, who is also a PLO aficionado added, “Poker players are much more educated now in terms of the game. The regular winning players have undergone special poker coaching from Indian as well as international poker coaches. With the evolution of technology, young professionals are using tools like HUD, GTO, Nash Charts, etc. and achieving consistent results.” 

Number of professional players in India  

The common answer received from most players we spoke to is that the number of players has gone up without any doubt. Kumar stated, “Due to the popularity of poker, many players have emerged in the field, adding to the poker players count in India but many of them are fishes who have the money to participate but not the skill set to win.”

Sriram on the other hand explains in depth about the rise in number of players. He said, “Over the last decade the professional player pool has gone through a roller coaster ride. Poker boomed from 2020 onwards with a whole new bunch of players becoming poker professionals. It also resulted in larger guarantees and the game saw rapid growth in India. But that has changed after the new GST rule implementation.” 

“For the sport to develop and have a strong player pool that can take on international players, there needs to be some regulatory support that helps the game. The current structure of not recognising poker as the skill game which will end up affecting the game negatively. Hoping that things will change in the future.”

RRT, who has been a strong pillar of the poker community, also shared thoughts on the growing player pool. He added, “Today, I personally know at least 500 people who play the game professionally. Data also suggests the number of people playing online poker professionally for a living is more than 3,000. 

Recreational players have grown to millions from a few hundreds in the past. In the coming decade this growth rate will only compound and we will have a much stronger and bigger industry going forward subject to government cooperation.”

Commenting on the online fields we have Gupta who said, “We used to hardly have around 150 to 200 entries in an online tournament and nowadays you can find entries around 5K+ in a feature event. It is the same with live tournaments where the number has gone from 40-50 to 600+.”

One crucial aspect for more players coming forth and becoming a part of the growing poker industry is the awareness and success stories. Bajaj quite masterfully explained, “10 years ago there weren’t many success stories coming out of poker and making news.

Similarly, the promotions for tournaments and other events weren’t that big. But today with all the marketing activities and success stories being highlighted in mainstream media, there is more awareness among the population.” 

Well, the evolution of poker is obviously incomplete without our players who grind hard, put their skills to test, go through rigorous training, and manage the ups and downs only to bounce back stronger. There is no one true formula for hitting success in poker, but keep pushing your limits like our pros do and you too can join India’s success story.

For more news and updates, keep reading GutshotMagazine.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram.

---

---

More News

---