How many players & how many clubs play bridge in the world?
Paulie
Hi all,
I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
players (approximately) there are.
From here
http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/zonelist.asp?qzone=1
It would appear that there are approx. 500.000 players
worldwide, but I would have thought that it was more than
that.
Does anyone have numbers (preferably with references?).
TIA,
Paul...
Kenny McCormack
Of course, it depends entirely on how you define a player and how you
define a club. That's true of everything in the world: the number of Xs
there are depends entirely on how you define an X.
It is also true that there is no exact answer.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
In Denmark we usually give the number of players as 200'000. The
population is 5 million.
On this page
http://www2.bridge.dk/Distrikter%20(kluboversigt).aspx?ID=211
the menu has links to club-lists from each district.
> It would appear that there are approx. 500.000 players
> worldwide, but I would have thought that it was more than
> that.
I would venture the guess that no matter how one defines
"player", the number is (way) too small.
> Does anyone have numbers (preferably with references?).
They will be references from one (hopefully) educated guesser to
another.
--
Bertel
http://bertel.lundhansen.dk/ FIDUSO: http://fiduso.dk/
boblipton
Well, there are millions who say they're bridge players. But really,
only a dozen or so.
Bob
Stu G
Your http reference shows about 400,000 members in Europe alone. I
know the ACBL (North America) has 159,000 members, so your number is
definitely low no matter how you are counting bridge players.
Also, these numbers reflect people who play bridge competitively to
some extent. It does not count people who play bridge socially or for
fun.
Maybe those from the various RAs can respond to this query with their
membership numbers.
-Stu Goodgold
San Jose, CA
Paulie
On Apr 26, 4:30 pm, Paulie <linehan.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
Firstly, thanks to all who answered. I accept that the definition
is not black and white and it's difficult to quantify exactly
the definition.
Would a statement such as
"approximately a million people play some form of competetive bridge
at least
once a year in approx. 25.000 clubs around the world"
be correct? Would say the amount 750.000 be more accurate?
Thanks again for any pointers.
Rgs.
Paul...
> Paul...
blackshoe
wrote:
> It is also true that there is no exact answer.
Actually, that turns out not to be the case. There *is* an exact
answer, it would just take an impractically large amount of work to
pin it down. :-)
blackshoe
If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
Palooka
I concur entirely. University lecturers are in general not stupid, and
will quickly identify numbers which have been largely made up on the
basis of a question or two to a Usenet group.
Five minutes on the Internet is not sufficient. OP needs to do some real
research, to be prepared to cite sources and to provide a country by
country breakdown.
Of course there is no exact answer, but an estimate must be based on
credible research, not just a lazy stab in the dark.
Palooka
Bertel Lund Hansen
> If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
> not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
In which connection would you find it acceptable?
Paulie
On Apr 26, 9:10 pm, blackshoe <blacks...@mac.com> wrote:
> If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
> not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
I agree entirely, and that's why in my post I asked for references.
I did check the WBF site and it would appear that 500.000 odd is
their assessment.
I was just looking for any other sources, and again thanks to all
who answered.
What about clubs? Surely that's easier to pin down?
I don't have the time to do exhaustive research on the
issue so I came here to ask the experts ;)
Paul...
Travis Crump
The ACBL only claims around 150,000 players on its website; does Denmark
really have 50,000 more players than the ACBL? If anything that number
is high, a surprisingly high number of ACBL members don't actively compete.
Travis
alvin
>
> - Show quoted text -
Travis:
I think that the Denmark number refers to bridge players as a whole,
the ACBL number to members of the organization (the zonal governing
body for bridge in the US, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda combined.) These
are not the same thing.
There is no consensus for the number of bridge players as a whole or
the even larger number who know how to play whether or not they do
so.) That number is believed to be in the tens of millions, but
cannot readily be determined (or even convienently estimated). There
is a clear understanding of the number of persons who are members of
nationalor zonal bridge organizations that make up the WBF. But these,
again, are two completely concepts and should not be conflated.
As for the number, from among the members of the zonal/national
organizations, who played in competition last year, once again, this
is not easy to determine. The ACBL has published recent figures (in
the Bulletin) on the number of its members who won its master points
last year, but has not published any figures on the number who played
but did not win. Other groups might not have published that sort of
information (and may not have, or computed, it).
Alvin P. Bluthman
apblu...@aol.com
blackshoe
the NBO where they live. "Bridge", after all, encompasses rubber as
well as duplicate, not to mention Chicago. I read somewhere once
(sorry, no more data than that) that there are *far more* casual
rubber bridge players than duplicate players, perhaps on the order of
several million, worldwide. Also, some countries (the US is one) have
more than one duplicate bridge organization, and I'm pretty sure that,
in the case of the US, at least, not everyone who is a member of
either is a member of both (adjust for number of organizations as
necessary, but I think you'll get the idea).
blackshoe
> blackshoe skrev:
>
> > If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
> > not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
>
> In which connection would you find it acceptable?
What makes you think I would find it acceptable in any connection? I
specifically addressed "university project" because that's what he
said he was doing, not because my opinion is limited to that area.
What is the purpose of your question, anyway?
Barry Margolin
<4e282af1-9105-465f...@x29g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
blackshoe <blac...@mac.com> wrote:
If you're just having a random discussion among friends, guestimates are
probably good enough. But if you're doing a serious study, what would
be the point of publishing numbers that didn't have some real
justification behind them?
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
blackshoe
> If you're just having a random discussion among friends, guestimates are
> probably good enough. But if you're doing a serious study, what would
> be the point of publishing numbers that didn't have some real
> justification behind them?
Precisely!
agum...@gmail.com
I suggest you query the WBF. Although I doubt they keep precise
statistics, I would hope they have some clue. I'd suggest contacting:
WBF News Editor
Eric KOKISH
284 Keewatin Av.
Toronto - Ontario M4A 2P5
Canada
1-416-544 9910
1-416-544 9897
Andrew
Bertel Lund Hansen
> The ACBL only claims around 150,000 players on its website; does Denmark
> really have 50,000 more players than the ACBL?
No. The number refers to all sorts of players. If we are talking
club organized players, the number is
28.833 members (incl. Greenland) per June 1st 2006
If we extrapolate those two numbers worldwide (which I don't
think we can), it means that there are 200 mio. players and 28
mio. club members.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> > > > If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
> > > > not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
> If you're just having a random discussion among friends, guestimates are
> probably good enough.
Sure. But presenting them as confirmed data is not - in any
context.
Peter Smulders
news:9bnav4d8c87ls4pva...@news.stofanet.dk:
> Travis Crump skrev:
>
>> The ACBL only claims around 150,000 players on its website;
>> does Denmark really have 50,000 more players than the ACBL?
>
> No. The number refers to all sorts of players. If we are talking
> club organized players, the number is
>
> 28.833 members (incl. Greenland) per June 1st 2006
>
> If we extrapolate those two numbers worldwide (which I don't
> think we can), it means that there are 200 mio. players and 28
> mio. club members.
>
For comparison, in the Netherlands (16 million inhabitants) there
are slightly over 1000 clubs with over 100.000 members organized
in the NBB. The number of non-affiliated clubs is estimated to be
roughly equal, 1000, with 100.000 members.
Henk Uijterwaal
> Bertel Lund Hansen <unos...@lundhansen.dk> schreef in
> news:9bnav4d8c87ls4pva...@news.stofanet.dk:
>
>> Travis Crump skrev:
>>
>>> The ACBL only claims around 150,000 players on its website;
>>> does Denmark really have 50,000 more players than the ACBL?
>> No. The number refers to all sorts of players. If we are talking
>> club organized players, the number is
>>
>> 28.833 members (incl. Greenland) per June 1st 2006
>>
>> If we extrapolate those two numbers worldwide (which I don't
>> think we can), it means that there are 200 mio. players and 28
>> mio. club members.
>>
>
> For comparison, in the Netherlands (16 million inhabitants) there
> are slightly over 1000 clubs with over 100.000 members organized
> in the NBB.
There is some double counting in this due to the way things are
organized. Bridge games are organized by clubs. The clubs have
members (for various legal and tax reasons) and are members of
the national federation. As a person can be a member of more
than 1 club, the number of actual people is less than the sum
of the number of members that all the clubs have. I believe
the actual count is about 90,000 different people.
> The number of non-affiliated clubs is estimated to be
> roughly equal, 1000, with 100.000 members.
Again, there is double counting here: a person can be a member
of an affiliated and a non affiliated club.
Years ago, the NBB actually tried to figure out how many players
there are, where a player was defined as somebody who knew the
basic rules of the game. The estimate was that there were about
10 times as much players as members of the federation.
Henk
--
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hope for a solution, where everybody still lives happily.
Henk Uijterwaal
I have no idea where the once a year comes from or the 25,000. One
can be a member of an NCBO without ever playing. If you wanted to
say something accurate:
The National Contract Bridge Associations (NCBO's) had a combined
membership of 650,000 as of 1/1/2009 (reference: worldbridge.org).
These are players who have registered themselves in order to be
able to play competitive events. This number does not include
people who are familiar with the game but do not play in competitive
events.
Bertel Lund Hansen
> There is some double counting in this due to the way things are
> organized. Bridge games are organized by clubs. The clubs have
> members (for various legal and tax reasons) and are members of
> the national federation. As a person can be a member of more
> than 1 club, the number of actual people is less than the sum
> of the number of members that all the clubs have.
The same thing is true in Denmark of course, but I guess (don't
know) that the count is correct. DBF is sending the Danish bridge
magazine to all members, and it wouldn't be smart to send more
than one to a member.
> Years ago, the NBB actually tried to figure out how many players
> there are, where a player was defined as somebody who knew the
> basic rules of the game. The estimate was that there were about
> 10 times as much players as members of the federation.
That fits roughly with the Danish count and estimate.
rhm
The link you are referring mentions only the number of Bridge players
organized in the
European Bridge League. This number is already 397,623.
So the world wide number of organized club players must far higher
than 500,000
Rainer Herrmann
Barry Margolin
Henk Uijterwaal <he...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> I have no idea where the once a year comes from or the 25,000. One
> can be a member of an NCBO without ever playing.
I think it's reasonable to assume that the number of people who pay to
be a member of the organization, but don't participate in its
activities, is negligible, probably just a percent or two. If we're
just looking for ballpark figures, e.g. to the nearest 10,000 worldwide,
we can probably ignore problems like this. And I suspect even that
degree of accuracy will be hard to come by if we want to count social
bridge players who aren't members of a league -- these seem to mostly be
total guesses like "10 times as many as members of the league".
Travis Crump
> In article <49F5A090...@xs4all.nl>,
> Henk Uijterwaal <he...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> I have no idea where the once a year comes from or the 25,000. One
>> can be a member of an NCBO without ever playing.
>
> I think it's reasonable to assume that the number of people who pay to
> be a member of the organization, but don't participate in its
> activities, is negligible, probably just a percent or two.
I don't. My guess for our Unit would be in the neighborhood of at least
30%. It is certainly high enough that they did a survey semi-recently
of paying members who never play to see if anything could be done to get
them to come out.
Travis
Barry Margolin
Travis Crump <pret...@techhouse.org> wrote:
Wow. Did they find out why they continue to renew their membership?
For the Bulletin?
Henk Uijterwaal
> In article <49F5A090...@xs4all.nl>,
> Henk Uijterwaal <he...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>> I have no idea where the once a year comes from or the 25,000. One
>> can be a member of an NCBO without ever playing.
>
> I think it's reasonable to assume that the number of people who pay to
> be a member of the organization, but don't participate in its
> activities, is negligible, probably just a percent or two.
The ACBL has the issue of life masters. If one reaches that stage, one
is a life-member, even if one stops playing and paying. Of course, if one
stops paying the service fee, then one won't get the bulletin anymore, but
one is still a member. I have no idea if the current count of 160,000-odd
players in zone 2 include any life-members who quit playing.
And even if we ignore this, then there is nothing to back up the
claim "play at least once a year". On the data being presented, all
one can say is that the NCBO's have a combined membership of 650,000
people who joined and never cancelled as a member.
blackshoe
> The ACBL has the issue of life masters. If one reaches that stage, one
> is a life-member, even if one stops playing and paying.
That turns out not to be the case. One who was a member prior to 1996
and achieved life master status then is a life member, unless one has
resigned. No new life members are possible after 1995. Additionally,
life members were in the past not required to pay any fee to maintain
their status. Now they are (about the same as the normal annual
membership fee). Life Masters who don't pay their membership fee are
classified as "inactive", while Life Members who don't pay their
'service fee" are classified as "unpaid". Beyond that, it appears to
me there's no difference - both classes have the same privileges in
active status, both classes lose the same privileges if that status
lapses. One would expect that the number of Life Members is declining,
perhaps steeply.
Nick Wedd
<143c4b4b-55ca-4267...@x31g2000prc.googlegroups.com>,
blackshoe <blac...@mac.com> writes
>On Apr 26, 2:59�pm, Paulie <linehan.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 26, 4:30 pm, Paulie <linehan.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
>> > number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
>> > players (approximately) there are.
>>
>> Firstly, thanks to all who answered. I accept that the definition
>> is not black and white and it's difficult to quantify exactly
>> the definition.
>>
>> Would a statement such as
>>
>> "approximately a million people play some form of competetive bridge
>> at least
>> once a year in approx. 25.000 clubs around the world"
>>
>> be correct? Would say the amount 750.000 be more accurate?
I wonder what you mean by "competitive". If I play bridge at my kitchen
table with my friends for a penny a hundred, is that competitive? We
are competing, so I guess it is. In that case, what kind of bridge is
not competitive?
I understand the difference between competitive running (trying to beat
the others) and non-competitive running (for pleasure, or to burn off
some flab). But I don't know how to make such a distinction for bridge.
In case it is not obvious - the reason that no-one here has given you a
straight answer is that no-one knows. And how could they?
Nick
>> Thanks again for any pointers.
>>
>> Rgs.
>>
>> Paul...
>>
>> > Paul...
>
>If you're doing this for a university project, I think it behooves you
>not to throw out arbitrary numbers as if they were confirmed data.
--
Nick Wedd ni...@maproom.co.uk
patmp...@gmail.com
To be able to intone nonsense as if it were truth is a highly valued
skill throughout the world. Some very successful people owe
everything to this ability.
goo...@tmdunn.com
> Hi all,
>
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
>
Michael Angelo Ravera
> Hi all,
>
>
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
>
> From here
>
> http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/zonelist.asp?qzone=1
>
> It would appear that there are approx. 500.000 players
> worldwide, but I would have thought that it was more than
> that.
>
> Does anyone have numbers (preferably with references?).
But, the BFAME only lists 6000 players in India. I suspect that number for Bridge players in India is about a factor of 1000 too small. Just about every South Asian over about 15 that I know plays.
The number would be similar to asking how many Baseball players there are. Well there are only a few thousand in the Major League farm systems in the US and Canada and Japan and Korea, but that number just scratches the surface.
Lorne
I have no reference.
Certainly 500,000 is way too low. here is a list of national
federations - you could email the larger ones and they may tell you how
many members they have:
http://www.bridgeguys.com/International/national_bridge_federations.html
Co Wiersma
I live in The Netherlands and our very small country already has 117,000
registered players(meaning people who pay membership fee to the national
bridge federation)
http://www.bridge.nl/organisatie-algemeen
The European Bridge Federation thinks we have only 86,000 though
http://eurobridge.org/member-federations.aspx
Where you can see they claim to have 405,258 members in all of Europe
Co Wiersma
sallyp...@gmail.com
> Hi all,
>
>
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
>
> From here
>
> http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/zonelist.asp?qzone=1
>
> It would appear that there are approx. 500.000 players
> worldwide, but I would have thought that it was more than
> that.
>
> Does anyone have numbers (preferably with references?).
>
> TIA,
>
>
> Paul...
jogs
> Hi all,
>
>
> I'm doing a university project and I wish to find out the
> number of bridge clubs in the world and how many
> players (approximately) there are.
>
> From here
>
> http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/zonelist.asp?qzone=1
>
> It would appear that there are approx. 500.000 players
> worldwide, but I would have thought that it was more than
> that.
>
> Does anyone have numbers (preferably with references?).
>
> TIA,
>
>
> Paul...
In this 2005 article by Sharon Osberg, she says 3 million Americans are playing bridge once a week. 80 million Americans are playing poker.