There is an old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. While this saying came about because of events unrelated to poker, in 2009 the Las Vegas poker crowd has definitely come to understand the meaning of that saying in a very deep and profound way.

2009 was going to be a year of terrible foreboding for the poker industry. It was going to be the year of the anti-Moneymaker, where a combination of crackdowns on online poker and the terrible economy slicing through Las Vegas like a knife through butter was going to cancel all of the progress that had been made in making poker mainstream ever since 2003. Finally, it was going to be the year that saw the beginning of the end of popularized poker events, with the WSOP going back to being an event of the professionals.

However, fate can be a fickle lady and in the case of the poker industry, it turned out that their predictions were dead wrong. Instead of declining, the World Series of Poker appears to be flourishing. Information as of yet is not available about the $10,000 Main Event, but some of the early returns are indicating that Las Vegas is reaping the benefits of an unusually successful early World Series of Poker. The first $1,000 No Limit Hold ‘Em event has generated 6,000 entries for an all-time record and the $40,000 anniversary No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament has a huge prize pool of $7.7 million. Similarly, the $1,500 Omaha/8 tournament has 918 players signed up for it, once again an all-time record.

Part of the problem when it comes to making these projections is that a lot of them are heavily dependent on what is going on in Vegas at the time. And right now, what is going on in Vegas is record low prices for rooms. Some of the Las Vegas Strip hotels have rooms available for $35 a night, which is absolutely unheard of in a popular tourism resort such as Las Vegas. With those kinds of prices, a lot of people with smaller bankrolls are making trips for the smaller events and that is a different kind of victory for the World Series of Poker organizers.