Run It Once Training delivered another gem this week as old-school poker legend Gus Hansen took his turn in the hot seat for a special edition of the site's monthly Elite Q&A – fielding questions from listeners and sharing a couple stories along the way.
In the wake of back-to-back sessions with Tom Dwan, it's clear that Run It Once Training is sticking to a bit of an blast-from-the-past theme – at least for the time being – and we're all for it.
Hansen offered up his answers and opinions on a wide variety of subject matter, including his thoughts on poker's staying power and its future, innovations across variants of poker, and his response to a theory on why Scandinavian players are overrepresented in the community – it's all right above in the linked video, check it out.
'The oldest job'
It was a question from Run It Once Training's Mikey Stotz that started the conversation of note.
"What do you think the future of poker looks like?" Stotz asked.
"In the annals of history, the oldest job is prostitution and gambling," Hansen begins, promisingly. "They've been around for years and years and they're gonna keep being around.
"I feel like back in 2002 – when the World Poker Tour was introduced like twelve times a year into the homes of people in the US and then the UK and then the Scandinavian countries, etc. – for the first time we had a gambling game that became a household game. Everybody could play, you could be at your job and every first Friday of the month they have a poker tournament.
"I think it's here to stay. People are always going to enjoy [poker]. Whether it's going to swing back a little bit towards the live experience – that also has the social component – I can't say for sure."
'The Great Dane' went on to explain that friends of his from other walks of life often point to the fact that they don't see poker on television as much as they used to. For these outsiders, this is a clear sign of decline. For Hansen, it's less of a concern.
"I believe there's more poker players today in 2026 than there's ever been. That's a good sign – if I'm right in that, and I think I am – but it has lost its news value. Back in the day, there was 12 tournaments a year so it was easier to follow. Now there's 570,000 fucking tournaments a year so it's impossible to dissect who's the best. Is it Daniel Negreanu? Is it Adrian Mateos? Is it still Phil Ivey?"
Despite all of the "junk" as he calls it, Hansen doesn't think poker is going anywhere soon.
"It's here to stay. I could not imagine otherwise," he concluded.
