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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.

History[edit]

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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 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.

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Poker television programs[edit]

Here is a list of poker television programs that have aired on television in either North America or Europe.

North America[edit]

¹ ESPN did not air the WSOP in 1996 or 1999–2001; The Discovery Channel did air one-hour specials of the 2000 & 2001 Main Events

² World Series of Poker bracelets events and select coverage of the Main Event have streamed on exclusively on PokerGO from 2017-2019.

Europe[edit]

Notes[edit]

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1. ^Burton, Earl (May 24, 2006). ''High Stakes Poker' Back for a Second Season in June'. PokerNews. Retrieved October 27, 2006.
2. ^Rovell, Darren (2011-04-18). 'Insider Breakdown of Poker's Black Friday'. CNBC. Retrieved 2011-04-19.

Most poker fans will agree on the two major factors that contributed to the poker boom of recent years: online poker and TV poker shows. Not only has the customer base for online poker exploded in the last eight years, the sheer amount of TV poker content has also expanded. In a five-hundred-channel universe that must fill its voracious twenty-four hour programming schedule, poker shows have become nearly as omnipresent as late-night infomercials.

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Here are some of the best US-based poker TV shows:

#5: Doubles Poker Championships (Game Show Network)

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GSN’s “Doubles Poker Championship” is probably the most unique poker show on TV. Instead of playing against each other, players must cooperate as duos win a four-team single-table tournament. The format presents challenges for the player beyond reading a single opponent: each player must also understand his partner’s moves, as well as both members of the opposing teams.

The fun for the viewers often comes less from the stellar poker play the pros exhibit, but the clash in personalities among these strong characters. If Phil Hellmuth is a sore loser when he only has to depend on his own ability, imagine the meltdowns he has when a teammate lets him down.

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#4: Poker After Dark (NBC)

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The presentation style of “Poker After Dark” comes across much more as a high-stakes home game rather than a high-pressure winner-take-all tournament. Players are often looser and more given to table talk… at least according to Phil Hellmuth. Speaking of Hellmuth blowups, the clip above shows how the “Poker Brat” starts comparing the show to the “World Wide Wrestling Federation”.

The players take the game seriously (sometimes too much) and the commentary is insightful and educational. “PAD” is without question the best poker show on any of the major broadcast networks.

#3: World Poker Tour (Fox Sports Net)

Over the last eight years, the World Poker Tour has been one of the pillars of TV poker programming. With a new tournament nearly every week, the WPT has produced more poker content than any other regular poker show. The graphics and presentation in each broadcast give the tournaments a dramatic feel, in spite of some of the corniest commentary seen this side of Norman Chad.

For the last few years, the show has been hopping networks. Starting at the Travel Channel in 2003, then moving to Game Show Network in 2007, and later to Fox Sports Net. The FSN format split each two-hour show into two one-hour episodes, making it harder to follow the action

#2: World Series of Poker (ESPN)

The familiar guitar twang of the intro has carried the “Grandaddy of them All” from the run-down rooms of Binion’s on Fremont Street all the way to the spacious Amazon Room at the Rio. ESPN’s coverage of each year’s WSOP is still the measuring stick for every other TV poker show.

Despite the ratings decline in recent years and criticisms over the commentary (“I believe they are the ‘Ramblin’ Wreck’!”), the WSOP will remain the most popular TV poker show for the foreseeable future.

#1: High Stakes Poker (Game Show Network)

Although the WSOP has the glamour and prestige, GSN’s “High Stakes Poker” has the best in-game action of any poker TV show. The main difference between “High Stakes” and the other poker shows is that it shows real cash-game action, rather than a tournament. Players will often throw bundles of hundred-dollar bills in a pot along with their chips. The visual impact of seeing a player toss in enough cash to equal six months’ salary cannot be underestimated.

Of course, for every classic TV show, there are a dozen failures. Poker shows are no exception, especially ones that try to go “behind the scenes” or tell the “real story”. I’ll cover those in the follow-up to this article.

By Gerald Hanks

Gerald Hanks is from Houston Texas, and has been playing poker since 2002. He has played cash games and no-limit hold’em tournaments at live venues all over the United States.

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