As far as raw numbers... Presumably people at Paulson had some internal sense and probably some hard research on this 15-20 years ago. Is there anyone in this community with friends there who could dig that out?
FWIW, I live in a rural Northeastern county with a population of about 60,000. No one in the county lives closer than 40 minutes to a casino, and most residents are more like 60-90 minutes away.
The number of local home and social club games in my area has dropped over the past decade. Whereas I used to know of at least four regular games in social halls, and about 6-7 home games, those numbers are now more like 2 and 4. Probably there are other games I am unaware of, though in this small a community I tend to encounter most of the regular players and hear people talk about where else they play.
Of the games I know about, mine is the only one which uses “quality” chips. Most use dice chips; I play in one where they have Milano’s, and another with heavy slugged chips of a brand whose name I’m forgetting.
So say there are 10 total private games for a population of 60,000. I think there actually are fewer, and games may be more or less common in other types of communities. But say 1 game per ~6,000 people.
For a population of about 326 million, that would suggest around 54,000 private (non-casino/legal cardroom) games.
Now — and again, I’m just spitballing numbers here — say 50% of those hosts are never going to use anything but dice chips, even if GPI starts selling to the home market again and makes THC-grade chips affordable.
Another 35%, say, might invest in mid-grade sets.
That would leave at most, I’m guesstimating, 8-10,000 games where the host might seriously consider acquiring high-end sets—some of which already have ’em. So about quality 150-200 private games per state. (More in California/New York/Texas, less in Alaska, Rhode Island, Wyoming...)
So now, the question is, how many of them are already all set (already have high-end chips) and aren’t going to switch/expand their sets more than once a decade if that?
Chop that number in half again, and you’re down to mayyybe 4,000-5,000 potential customers, buying sets of 500-2,000 chips once per decade. Maybe...
... which could optimistically work out to 500,000-2,000,000 chips per year, if a company like Paulson re-entered the market and aggressively promoted the product not just among existing chippers, but more widely.
What do people think?
FWIW, I live in a rural Northeastern county with a population of about 60,000. No one in the county lives closer than 40 minutes to a casino, and most residents are more like 60-90 minutes away.
The number of local home and social club games in my area has dropped over the past decade. Whereas I used to know of at least four regular games in social halls, and about 6-7 home games, those numbers are now more like 2 and 4. Probably there are other games I am unaware of, though in this small a community I tend to encounter most of the regular players and hear people talk about where else they play.
Of the games I know about, mine is the only one which uses “quality” chips. Most use dice chips; I play in one where they have Milano’s, and another with heavy slugged chips of a brand whose name I’m forgetting.
So say there are 10 total private games for a population of 60,000. I think there actually are fewer, and games may be more or less common in other types of communities. But say 1 game per ~6,000 people.
For a population of about 326 million, that would suggest around 54,000 private (non-casino/legal cardroom) games.
Now — and again, I’m just spitballing numbers here — say 50% of those hosts are never going to use anything but dice chips, even if GPI starts selling to the home market again and makes THC-grade chips affordable.
Another 35%, say, might invest in mid-grade sets.
That would leave at most, I’m guesstimating, 8-10,000 games where the host might seriously consider acquiring high-end sets—some of which already have ’em. So about quality 150-200 private games per state. (More in California/New York/Texas, less in Alaska, Rhode Island, Wyoming...)
So now, the question is, how many of them are already all set (already have high-end chips) and aren’t going to switch/expand their sets more than once a decade if that?
Chop that number in half again, and you’re down to mayyybe 4,000-5,000 potential customers, buying sets of 500-2,000 chips once per decade. Maybe...
... which could optimistically work out to 500,000-2,000,000 chips per year, if a company like Paulson re-entered the market and aggressively promoted the product not just among existing chippers, but more widely.
What do people think?
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