Cashing In On The Poker Boom
Poker has always been kind of sexy, slightly roguish, and unquestionably cool. But never has poker been so hot.
With tours and tournaments, celebrities and TV, poker is not just a game these days ? it's the game! Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.
"Everybody knows that poker is the new, hot, hip happening thing. I believe that poker is to games what jazz is to music. It's the great American card game," says Steve Lipscomb.
Lipscomb helped ignite the boom with the World Poker Tour -- televised, roving, high-stakes games, like one tournament in Commerce, California last year, where 382 players anted up $10,000 each in hopes of winning $1.4-million jackpot.
His show became a hit as soon as it hit cable's "Travel Channel" two years ago. So is this the new reality TV?
"We have created a new genre of reality TV, undoubtedly," says Lipscomb.
A little camera allows viewers at home to see what the players can't -- each opponent's cards.
"It's the anticipation of somebody about ready to fall off the cliff or go over the waterfall, where you're going, 'Don't do it,'" says Lipscomb.
Poker is a cultural phenomenon. Any given night in almost any neighborhood in America, you're certain to find friendly games of poker.
In California, poker rooms, legal since the '80s, now are bulging -- some players putting down a few dollars, others a few thousand.
There are shelves full of poker books, and a profusion of poker on the Internet -- where you can find hundreds of thousands of players every night.
"The name of the game is absolutely no limit Texas Hold 'Em," says Lipscomb. "This is the top fuel drag racing of poker."
In no limit Hold 'Em, each player gets two cards face down to use with five community cards to make the best poker hand. A player can risk all of his or her chips on a single hand.
So what's the big appeal? Ask Phil Gordon. He cashed out of the dot-com boom to cash in on the Poker boom. Now he's a poker pro.
"Well the appeal of poker is pretty simple," says Gordon. "You can match wits with the best players in the world and at any particular day, you can beat them, like a drum."
Want proof? Look no further than Chris Moneymaker. He learned to play poker on the Internet, parlayed a $40 online ante into a seat at the World Series of Poker two years ago, and walked away with the $2.5-million jackpot.
"That's the story that was probably the best for all of poker, was the Moneymaker story," says Doug Dalton, poker director at the posh Bellagio casino in Las Vegas.
"I think a lot of people can see that it's a kind of game where they can potentially win a lot of money," says Dalton. "When a person sits down and plays, it's only their skill against their opponents." But poker wasn't always so user friendly. It had a notorious past immortalized in shows like "Maverick." "Maverick" star James Garner now lends the game some Hollywood glamour. He's side by side on the Poker Walk of Fame with Doyle Brunson, considered by some the greatest living poker player.
"When I started playing, it was illegal," says Brunson. "We had to worry about the police arresting ya, you had to worry about getting robbed, ya had to worry about getting cheated, had to worry about collecting your money after you won it. So, it's come a ways, yes."
These days, poker is downright respectable, appealing to an ever-widening cross section of Americans. The World Poker Tour, sponsor of this tournament in southern California, estimates there are more than 50 million poker players in the United States today.
"Well, it's truly democratic. Race, fate, class how big or strong or fast you are has nothing to do in determining the outcome," says Jim McManus, who wrote "Positively Fifth Street," a best-selling book on poker. Now, he writes a poker column in the New York Times.
"Well, baby boomers like you and me used to be able to get it done more effectively on the courts and diamonds and playing fields," says McManus. "And now we still burn hot to play and compete and poker allows us to play at a very high level, even at a championship level."
Jennifer Harmon has been playing at a championship level for years. "I think it's definitely a woman's game," says Harmon.
She is, by some accounts, the game's top woman player. "I think women follow their instinct better than men," says Harmon. "So if you get a competitive, aggressive woman with instincts, I think they're going to fair better than a man."
The high stakes games she prefers are not for the fainthearted. In one game, she lost, but she's won considerably more over the years. Today, the big winners are stars with nicknames like the magician, Jesus, the Unabomber.
And where there are lights, cameras and a huge audience, can celebrities be far behind? Hollywood poker faces came out last year for this celebrity tournament at the commerce casino near Los Angeles.
"People in America see the celebrities playing and they want to play the same game they're playing," says Phil Gordon, who hosts Celebrity Poker Showdown, one of the growing number of poker TV shows.
The show was spoofed on "Saturday Night Live," a sure sign of poker's cultural icon status. Other sure signs include the growing numbers of players, and the ever-increasing jackpots.
"Our tournaments have exploded," says Lipscomb. "I see us being here in five to 10 years. We haven't just created a television show. We've created a sport."
And, with the jackpots up, game organizers are feeling flush and have no plans to fold.