Will Nevada Online Poker Be Lucrative Enough For The Pros?

With South Point Poker expected to be up and running in Nevada over the coming weeks, followed by a whole slew of other online poker websites, the question still remains whether the  intrastate player pool will be sufficient to provide poker pros with a means to make a decent living.
Chief concern amongst the pros include the fact that Nevada with a population of around 2.8 million people, is ranked just 35th overall out of all the US states. Of course, Nevada attracts millions of tourists each month but the percentage of those that will be playing online poker will likely pale compared to the numbers attained by global industry giants like PokerStars.
Commenting on the matter, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Justin Truesdell explained: “I don’t think I could play online poker for a living if it is intrastate..I don’t think if it was limited to a state with the population of Nevada that it would be able to maintain the player base that is needed.”
One player who says he’s willing to give Nevada online poker a go, but is skeptical of being able to sustain a living is multi-tabler Jeff “ICuRaRook” Sluzinksi, who said he believes there will neither be sufficient MTTs available or players, particularly fish, for him to attain the volume needed to reach his poker goals.
“It’s the same reason I am not playing on Bovada or Merge in addition to their cashout issues,” Sluzinksi explained.
Since Black-Friday, US poker pros such as David Randall and Kevin Iacofono have spent their time traveling abroad to play online poker and said they would take a wait and see approach to decide whether or not returning would be worth their while. However, as Randall explains: “The field sizes would just have to create good enough value to make more sense then playing on PokerStars. I definitely think that initially it will be state based and that it is not likely that it will have large enough fields.”