For several years now, there has been a debate surrounding the profitability of poker players. Many question the money they actually win, especially high roller players, as payouts are often publicized more than buy-ins spent. This is nothing new. What is new is the fact that many players have lost money during the last MTT season, and this has reignited the debate. Even Jonathan Tamayo 
Recently, the 2024 world champion appeared on The Table 1 Podcast, one of the most listened-to shows on YouTube. In it, he referred to the crisis that MTT players are going through, who are recording fewer and fewer profits in their results.
«It’s harder to make a living from this than before. Buy-ins are not going up; in fact, they are going down. That’s why we see many $6K, $7K, or $8K tournaments and no longer see as many $3K buy-in tournaments. That tells us there are fewer and fewer players,» Tamayo began to analyze.
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«Life doesn’t stop, and the business is still about making money, so I believe poker is at a crossroads regarding what it could become because it could turn into any other casino game where there is no profit for the player. The problem is that, if you don’t even offer the concept of making a profit, poker could become the new horse racing, in the sense that there’s a huge contraction of players, nobody cares what happens there except for that small niche and those two months in the summer. That’s what worries me now,» the young player elaborated.
This is not the first time a player has expressed concern about these issues. Legends like Daniel Negreanu 
Are we facing an identity crisis in poker, which will cause it to become a game where players are no longer the beneficiaries? Or will it be another market phenomenon that will eventually settle to give way to a new era of the game?
