Poker television programs had been extremely popular, especially in North America and Europe, following the poker boom. This has especially become the case since the invention of the "pocket cam" in 1997 (and its first use in the United States in 2002), which allows viewers at home to see each player's hole cards. However, viewership has been declining dramatically in recent years, due to laws that restricted online play in the United States.
Poker has been appearing on television somewhat regularly since the late-1970s. In the United States, CBS started airing the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event as an annual one-hour show around this time and later by ESPN, which were casino-produced shows produced under a time-buy arrangement for sports omnibus programming such as the CBS Sports Spectacular. For many years, the coverage was less than robust because viewers at home could not see what cards the players had or follow their progress visually through graphics. Instead, the coverage essentially involved the commentators guessing what cards the players had in a documentary style production.
In 1997, the hole cam, which allows audiences to see the hidden cards that players held in their hands, was introduced in Europe. The hole cam was patented by WSOP bracelet winner Henry Orenstein and first used in the Late Night Poker television series. It was used again in the inaugural Poker Million tournament in 2000 which boasted the attraction of the first £1,000,000 poker game on live television. By 1996, however, the ESPN one-hour highlight show only included hands that were shown down, so that the commentators, including Gabe Kaplan, could comment, in post-production, on the hands while they were being played out. The commentators referred to this as "taking a peek at the cards", and provided the first contemporary announcing on hands during the play in poker history. By 2001, however, Late Night Poker had been cancelled in the UK and televised poker could no longer be found in Europe. In the US, the 1999, 2000, and 2001 World Series of Poker events were only broadcast in one-hour documentaries on the Discovery Networks.
In 1999, documentary filmmaker Steven Lipscomb produced and directed a documentary on the WSOP for the Discovery Channel. It was the first U.S. poker production funded entirely by a television network rather than the casino. When the 1999 WSOP aired, it doubled its audience over the hour time slot. Seeing the audience reaction, Lipscomb believed there was an untapped market and began pitching poker series ideas to cable and network television. Because poker had been on the air for over twenty years, with little viewer interest, broadcasters were unwilling to commit resources to put a series on the air.
In October 2001, Lipscomb wrote a business plan. Along with poker player Mike Sexton and poker business woman Linda Johnson, Lipscomb approached casino mogul and avid poker player, Lyle Berman, whose company Lakes Entertainment agreed to fund the World Poker Tour (WPT)—the first organized and televised tour of poker tournaments in the world.
In June 2002, WPT filmed its first episode at Bellagio in Las Vegas. Wanting to create a compelling, action-packed show, WPT took eight months to edit the first WPT episode. ESPN, who resumed their coverage of the World Series of Poker in 2002, featured pocket cam technology in their return broadcast—albeit, in a very limited capacity—prior to the WPT's first show.
During this time, the “WPT Format” was created featuring the WPT hole cam, interactive graphics and “live sports feel”. These new features put viewers into the minds and at the heart of the action. The first WPT episode aired on March 30, 2003, on the Travel Channel and became an instant success (the highest rated show in network history).
A few months later, ESPN's broadcast of the 2003 World Series of Poker adopted many features characteristic of the emerging WPT series, with an improved graphic display detailing the exciting action of the Main Event's final table. This coupled with the unlikely outcome in the 2003 WSOP Main Event—where Tennessee accountant Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million after winning his seat through a $39 PokerStars satellite tournament—and the ensuing publicity only further sparked the already accelerated interest in the game initiated by the WPT.
These events are considered the main contributor to poker's booming popularity—increasing the number of entrants into live poker tournaments (at all levels), the growth of online poker and the overall greater interest in the game—but above all others, the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event (and subsequent broadcast on ESPN) is most cited as poker's Tipping Point; commonly referred to as the "Moneymaker Effect".
Poker gained further exposure in Canada and much of the United States as a result of the 2004-05 NHL lockout, which caused sports networks in both countries to air poker as replacement programming for their NHL coverage. [citation needed]
The much improved ratings of poker television programs from this point on lead to ESPN covering many more events of the World Series of Poker (in addition to the Main Event as in the past) since 2003, as well as covering some other tournaments outside of the World Series, such as the United States Poker Championship. Since its first broadcast, WPT has also expanded its tour stops from 12 events at seven casino partner locations to 23 domestic and international tournaments and 14 casino partners in Season VI.
Since the introduction of the hole cam and WPT television format, poker has become almost ubiquitous in the US and Europe. While poker originally aired on sports channels such as ESPN and Sky Sports has expanded to such "non traditional" networks as Bravo and GSN. All poker television programs make heavy use of the aforementioned pocket cam and television format, plus generally feature a "straightman" and a "comedian" type of commentators, with one often being a professional poker player.
With the ability to edit a tournament that lasts days into just a few hours, ESPN's World Series of Poker broadcasts generally focus on showing how various star players fared in each event. Key hands from throughout the many days of each year's WSOP Main Event are shown, and similar highly edited coverage of final tables is also provided. For the events in the WSOP before the Main Event, only the final table is covered in television coverage, similar to how the Main Event was televised before ESPN's airing of the 2003 World Series Main Event.
The World Poker Tour does not offer general coverage of the multi-day poker tournaments. Instead, the WPT covers only the action at the final table of each event. With aggressive play and increasing blinds and antes, the important action from a single table can easily be edited into a two-hour episode. Although the tournament fate of fewer stars are chronicled this way, it allows the drama to build more naturally toward the final heads up showdown.
Although most poker shows on television focus on tournaments, High Stakes Poker shows a high-stakes cash game. In this game professional and amateur players play no limit Texas Hold 'em with their own money (the minimum to enter the game is $100,000). This game has allowed spectators to observe differences between cash games and tournaments, and to see how players adjust their play to the different format.[1]
Poker's growth in Europe led to the creation of two FTA channels: The Poker Channel and Pokerzone. Both began broadcasting during 2005.
Televised poker experienced a sudden disruption in 2011 after the lawsuit United States v. Scheinberg et al. was filed. Two of the defendants in that case, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, were the primary sponsors of most of the shows that were airing on American television at the time.[2] Since it was discovered that online gambling (other than sports betting) was not illegal and the state law used to file the lawsuit was not applicable to foreign companies, the lawsuit was resolved in 2012, with the two companies merging and without any admission of guilt.
Although once popular, poker television programs have steadily been losing their audience and never fully recovered from the disruption caused by the Scheinberg lawsuit. ESPN is on contract to show World Series of Poker programming through 2017, though viewership has dropped dramatically since the early boom.
The over-the-top content platformPokerGO was launched in 2017 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.[3] It is a subscription-based streaming service specializing in poker content including cash games, tournaments, and documentaries.[4] PokerGO streamed the World Series of Poker from 2017 to 2020 in partnership with ESPN, before CBS Sports became the new domestic television partner in 2021.[5]
In December 2022 on YouTube-based Hustler Casino Live, the biggest pot in televised U.S. poker broadcast history was set. The No-Limit Hold'em cash game had stakes of $200/$400/$800/$1,600 and Alan Keating would win the $1,158,000 pot with a flush against "Handz".[6]
In February 2023 on PokerGO's No Gamble, No FutureCash of the Titans, Patrik Antonius would win a $1,978,000 pot with two pair against Eric Persson to break the record set on Hustler Casino Live.[7] Following that record-breaking pot, there were three pots that also amounted to larger than the previous record pot that was set on Hustler Casino Live.[8][9]
Poker television programs
Here is a list of poker television programs that have aired on television in either North America or Europe.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker players to the Horseshoe Casino for a single tournament, with a set start and stop time, and a winner determined by a secret ballot of the seven players.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the final table of each tournament.
Johnny Chan is a Chinese professional poker player. He has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, including the 1987 and 1988 World Series of Poker main events consecutively.
Gustav Hansen is a Danish professional poker player from Copenhagen, Denmark who has lived in Monaco since 2003. In his poker career, Hansen has won three World Poker Tour open titles, one WSOP bracelet and the 2007 Aussie Millions main event, and was the season one winner of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. Before turning to playing poker professionally in 1997, Hansen was already a world class backgammon player and a youth tennis champion.
David A. Ulliott (1 April 1954 – 6 April 2015), was an English professional gambler and poker player. Formerly, Ulliott was a minor figure in the Hull underworld, but went on to become a World Series of Poker bracelet-winner, and a mainstay of televised poker. At the poker table, he was known for wearing orange-tinted prescription sunglasses, a sharp suit and gold knuckleduster rings reading "Devil" and "Fish", which he made himself. In 2017 he was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Andrew Elliot Bloch is a professional poker player. He holds two electrical engineering degrees from MIT and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Chau Tu Giang is a Vietnamese-American professional poker player of Chinese descent, who is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a three-time final tablist of the World Poker Tour with over $3 million in live tournament winnings alone.
Nick Schulman is an American professional poker player and commentator.
The 2002 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe.
Patrik Antonius is a Finnish professional poker player, former tennis player and coach, and model from Vantaa, Finland. He currently resides in Monte Carlo. Antonius was mentored by poker pro Marcel Lüske as a member of Luske's "Circle of Outlaws" and later advised by Jennifer Harman. Antonius has two children.
J. C. Tran is a Vietnamese-American professional poker player, based in Sacramento, California.
Jeff Shulman is the editor of Card Player Magazine, and an American poker player with a record of success in tournament play, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is the son of Jan Shulman and Barry Shulman. Shulman's father, Barry, is an accomplished poker player and CEO of Card Player.
Oliver "Ali" Nejad is an Iranian-American television personality, who has hosted several shows including Road Trip on ESPNU, and has been a fill-in host for UNite, also on ESPNU. In May 2014, Nejad began working at HLN and hosted the network's program The Daily Share. He also executive produced and hosted his own award-nominated show, The Social Life.
Maria Ho is a Taiwanese-American poker player and television host/commentator. One of the top ranked female poker players in the world, and a Women in Poker Hall of Fame inductee, she has over $5,000,000 in live tournament winnings.
Daniel Heimiller is an American professional poker player who won the Limit Hold'em & Seven-Card Stud event at the 2002 World Series of Poker and the Seniors No-Limit Hold'em Championship in 2014. He has at least one WSOP cash for 25 consecutive years (1997-2021). He is ranked 5th in all time number of live tournament cashes and 12th in all time number of WSOP cashes.
The November Nine was the name used to refer to the final nine contestants, or final table, at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) from 2008 to 2016. The winner of the WSOP Main Event is considered to be the World Champion of Poker.
Andy Frankenberger is a professional poker player and former equity derivatives trader from New York City. In his first year as a professional poker player, Frankenberger was named World Poker Tour (WPT) Season IX Player of the Year. Card Player Magazine described this as one of poker's best rookie years in a September 2011 cover story. Frankenberger followed this up by winning back to back bracelets at the World Series of Poker in 2011 and 2012. He has been prominently featured in financial media including The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business Network, and Bloomberg Television.
The 2012 World Series of Poker was the 43rd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). It was held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada between May 27 – July 16, 2012, with the final table of the Main Event delayed until late October.
Kane Kalas is an American poker player, singer and broadcaster.
PokerGO is an over-the-top content platform based in Las Vegas, Nevada. PokerGO was launched in 2017 as a subscription-based streaming service offering poker centric online streaming.
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