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NEWS
1-2-3-4-5 |
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Poker still hot ticket |
LAS VEGAS — Turn on a television any day of the
week, and the odds are good you’ll find a Texas
Hold ’em poker game.
It might involve poker superstars playing for $1
million prizes, or celebrities competing for a
charity, or just common folks in a tournament at
a Midwest casino.
The game has made monumental strides in the past
few years, thanks largely to ESPN’s table cams
and coverage of the World Series of Poker.
But how long will the game continue to enjoy its
ride in popularity?
Two poker experts have differing opinions on
what’s in the cards.
Mike Sexton sees nothing but bigger, better
times ahead, while Mike Caro expects the game’s
popularity to soon top out. They were at the
World Series of Poker last week in the Rio
All-Suite Hotel and Casino, which hosts the
event.
“It’s going to keep growing,” Sexton said,
“because it has the right people involved. It’s
the young people.”
Younger players are the core of the expanding
online gambling industry, said Sexton, who
competes professionally and is the TV color
commentator for the World Poker Tour.
And the major tournaments are attracting more of
those younger competitors.
“It’s not like horse racing or the bridge world
where there are older people. With the Internet,
poker is only going to get bigger,” said Sexton,
the day after winning $1 million in a tournament
of champions.
The Web’s growing influence was evident at the
World Series of Poker at the Rio.
Last year only a handful of booths were in the
hallway outside the main poker room. This year
dozens of poker-related Internet companies had
booths lining the halls in all directions.
Young women in miniskirts walked among the
crowd, handing out fliers for poker seminars
sponsored by Doyle Brunson’s Web site.
And with the Internet and television exposure,
the prize money also is rapidly increasing for
the WSOP’s 45 events. The prize pool has grown
from $30,000 for the first tournament in 1971 to
$21.8 million in 2003, $46 million in 2004 and
$106 million in 2005.
The main event, the no-limit Texas Hold ’em
game, had a $7.5 million top prize in 2005,
which is three times the amount two years
earlier.
The main event’s number of players has gone from
six in 1971 to 839 in 2003 and 5,619 in 2005.
The Rio expects more than 8,000 players paying
$10,000 each to enter this year’s main event.
Caro, known as “The Mad Genius of Poker”, is
amazed by the growth of poker’s popularity, but
he expects the tide to turn.
“It can’t continue to grow. It will plateau
soon,” he said.
“But it will never go back to where it was. It
will always be at a supreme status.”
By Doug Goodman |
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