Neymar Epitomises Poker Boom in Brazil

The 2014 World Cup has left a rather sour taste in the mouths of those of us that love to follow Brazilian football. There was so much expectation, so much hope and so much passion only for it all to finally come to an end in an embarrassing defeat to the Germans.

Whilst that defeat should be forgotten about and never spoken of again, something good did actually come out of it. Another industry called poker was given a timely boost that has now seen it become a current trend.

neymar

We all know that one of the reasons for the defeat was due to the absence of the injured Neymar, the player that just last season signed for Barcelona and has carried on scoring for fun since leaving Santos. Well, you might have heard a story of how Neymar could no longer watch the demise of his team against Chelsea and actually tweeted that he went to play poker instead!

Since then he has been tweeting all kinds of pictures of him playing poker both online and live – something which has helped give the poker scene in the country a huge boost.

Poker Once Again Booming in Brazil

That magical tweet started something in the country as it helped to dispel the depression for many after the World Cup, as they found themselves following a new game that had become something of a trend in recent years.
In fact, other Brazilian legends such as Ronaldo and Bebeto are keen players of the game that is now picking up pace in their home country. Poker’s popularity has grown at an incredible rate and the World Series of Poker Main Event even had Brazilian player Bruno Politano make the final table.

Bruno-Politano-WSOP-Final-RakeTheRake

Politano had a rail of supporters for that final table that included Neymar and international teammate Kaka. Unfortunately, Politano was unable to win the world’s most prestigious poker title but he certainly helped to keep the Brazilian poker boom’s momentum moving along nicely. Just imagine what would have happened had he gone on and won the $10 million that was on offer for first place.

Whilst Neymar and these other footballing legends have no doubt been a massive contributing factor to the rise in popularity of poker in Brazil, the foundations were initially put in place by PokerStars and Full Tilt who have been attempting to bridge the gap between poker and South America.

The two online poker giants are behind the two major live tournaments that are played in Brazil: the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) and Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) that have proved to be big successes.

PokerStars and Full Tilt have already been a massive part in the success of poker all around the world and they are always looking to bring the joys of the game to parts of the world that have not really had access to it before. They are also looking to expand their offerings with by offering casino type games too.

Full Tilt has entered the online casino market already this year with huge success in Europe; something that we are sure will soon follow to other continents around the world.

With the popularity of the tours in Brazil and the number of new players that are turning into professional players, it would certainly seem that the future of poker in the country is starting to look very good indeed.

So in summary, although the World Cup did not go according to plans for Brazilian fans, that defeat did play its part in another sport gaining huge popularity in the country.


Subscribe to comments Comment | Trackback |
Post Tags: , , ,

Browse Timeline


Add a Comment


XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>