By Nathan Kim
An Ottawa business owner has found a way to make a profit in the game of poker that doesn’t depend on luck or a straight face.
Nick “The Greek” Arnone started Poker Chips “All In”, an online poker equipment store, to supply a market that he says was overlooked by other retailers.
Arnone says that before he opened his business, he could only find poker tables for sale at billiard and gaming stores and, “They were asking out -of- control prices.”
Clay poker chips were even harder to find.
“I haven’t seen anybody else in the Ottawa area selling chips,” he says. “You’d have to go on EBay to buy a set of chips.”
Arnone says June 2004 was the right time to open his business because of the recent phenomenon that he describes as a poker craze.
Poker is currently going through a popularity surge with poker world championships being broadcast on national sports networks like TSN.
“It’s reached the point now you’ve got people in their 20s, 30s, and in their 40s playing,” says Arnone. “There’s tournaments every weekend.”
Arnone says he has sold sets of chips to all levels of players.
The Internet has also played a part in poker’s recent rise in popularity, says Arnone.
“Eighty million people play on the Internet per year,” he says.
Computerized gaming might have helped promote the game of poker but, according to longtime poker player and Centretown resident, Tom McGowan, the Internet might actually hamper the poker chip business.
McGowan says he has a noticed a sharp decline in the number of poker games happening in the Centretown area as more and more people have taken to playing online.
“Illegal card houses used to be pretty popular. That’s pretty much passé these days,” he says. “Computer business has pretty much taken care of the physical side of things.”
McGowan says the Internet is more convenient and easier for people to access than the old gaming houses.
Still, McGowan feels that there are certain aspects of poker that cannot be captured in a computer game.
“Those [live] games were always more personal, you could read the players expression and stuff like that. [Online] it’s all numbers and calculating odds,” says McGowan.
Patrick Yau, an economics student at the University of Ottawa, says he and some friends hold casual games at houses in the Centretown area every couple of months.
Yau says he rarely plays for money but enjoys playing poker because the game “involves mathematics, psychology and most importantly, intense thinking.”
Even if there aren’t many organized games going on in Centretown, Yau says he knows many people like himself who enjoy playing casually.
McGowan agrees that there is still a strong market and potential for Arnone’s new online business.
He says the recent popularity of televised poker championships will do nothing but bring business to anyone involved in the poker industry.
“The [televised] poker championships are awesome,” he says. “Guys watch it and get the itch.”
As for Ottawa, McGowan says Arnone may find a large market in the suburbs. “All those ‘burb areas, like Nepean and Kanata. They have the money and they don’t come downtown to spend it,” he says.
As long as the orders are coming from within Ottawa, Arnone says he will deliver.