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The parent company of the Global Poker Index (GPI) has announced that they have acquired a total of $5 million from various investors which they will use to promote poker as a sport. GPI CEO Alex Dreyfus stated that they have big goals and are working on creating a new poker boom.
Although not all the investors are known, Donald Tang (an american businessman and investment banker) and John Gleasure (CEO of New Ventures at Perform, a sports content and media company) are confirmed to be part of the business.
According to Alex Dreyfus, the next epicenter of the poker boom will be in China and mostly powered through e-sports, video games, media and sports industries. Dreyfus also said that they are working on developing poker as a sport in China, which could have a domino effect in the growth of the game.
Dreyfus also stated that even though many believe the game is dying, it is actually growing year by year.
From 2012 to 2013 poker globally grew by 17%, 2014 live tournament entries increased by 9.4% and the digital interest in the game has been growing every year (12% in 2013, 25% in 2014 and 31% in the first half of 2015.
Dreyfus plans to organize more live poker streamings and wants to create new poker shows to try and attract more players to poker. The first Global Poker Masters was also a big success that he hopes will get even more popular with each subsequent event.
If GPI and Dreyfus are successful in their mission, the results could be huge for the online poker market, the influx of Chinese players could easily make up for or even exceed the traffic losses that the banning of online poker in the USA caused.