The interest in poker remains hot
According to one of the industries leading search engines -Â www.Lycos.com, poker was the most searched topic on the Internet. It’s the second year in a row the game has earned such honors. Poker drew more interest than MySpace, YouTube and golf. It even dominated the interest in the volatile Britney Spears. The interest in poker remains hot -Â despite a constant forecast that the fad is nearing its end. It all started in 2003 when a Tennessee accountant named Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. It was his first trip into a live casino, and by the time he walked out of it he was $2.5 million richer. (The success story hasn’t died down since). 
It’s impossible to cite an exact figure on the U.S. poker-playing population, but it’s been estimated to be between 50 million and 75 million poker players. Online Poker had a rather turbulent year in 2007 with the U.S. government. In September 2006, Congress passed a bill that blocked banks from transferring money to online poker sites. The legislation crippled the online industry as many of the game’s most popular sites discontinued service to U.S.- based customers. This didn’t keep companies from continuing on with a “business as usual“