Poker in the News

If you read the Fashion & Style section of the Sunday New York Times a few weeks ago, you found a feature article on Clonie Gowen, a former Miss Teen Oklahoma, considered by many a rising poker star, and certainly one of the more telegenic faces in our game. The Gowen feature was just one of thousands of poker news stories appearing in the last year, both the result of and a contributor to the recent growth in the game's popularity.

There's a saying in the publicity business: It doesn't matter what they say, as long as they spell my name right! Well, the good news for poker is that it's being spelled right in publications across America, and indeed the world. In Council Bluffs, Iowa; North Gainesville, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; Sikeston, Missouri; Hamilton, Ohio; and elsewhere, the local papers are talking about poker. Of course, one of the big topics the press covers is the phenomenal growth the game has seen in the past year, and the popularity of poker on television. Many of the stories feature local tournaments, whether run in barrooms or as charity affairs at country clubs. You've got to love a headline like: "Poker Explosion Hits Vermont", featuring a tournament at the Burlington Elks Club. Such publicity is helping fuel the current growth in poker.

I subscribe to an electronic press-clipping service. Every day, I receive an e-mail with the URL to stories about poker that have appeared in publications across the country. In just the past few weeks, there have been stories in The Village Voice, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Manchester Union Leader, Oklahoma Daily, Bonner County (Idaho) Daily Bee, Duluth News Tribune, Utica Observer Dispatch, and many, many others.

When I started using this service a few years ago, days, and sometimes a week, would go by with no e-mail. Then, they started coming daily, and then, the list of stories started getting longer. The phenomenal surge in poker's popularity has been reflected in coverage of our game by media everywhere, and this creates something of a positive feedback cycle. The more people there are interested in poker, the more it is covered. The more it is covered, the more people become interested in it. The surge was initially driven by the growth of Internet poker and poker on television, but I think perhaps it has reached a point where the game's popularity transcends these engines of growth, although both remain important to the long-term future of our game. Now, not a day goes by that I don't get links to at least a dozen stories, and I read most of them.

One trend I've seen in my perusal of poker in the news is a great growth in the use of poker as metaphor for business and life. One great story I read characterized the NFL's negotiations with television networks as a "Billion Dollar Poker Game." The portrait "Dogs Playing Poker" is hugely popular around the country. Poker vernacular is creeping into non-poker stories, as well.

Many of the stories feature business angles. Card Player's Barry Shulman was featured in Business Week Magazine. There's been lots of biz news buzz about World Poker Tour corporate backers Lakes Entertainment and WPT Enterprises, especially in the recent IPO of Lakes' spin-off of WPT. The UltimateBet sponsorship of the Guineas Stakes, a famous, popular, and distinguished horse race, as a marketing tool to gain entry to the European market got coverage not only in business trades, but numerous horse racing publications. So, too, did the corporate sponsorship of a group of UK poker players known as The Hendon Mob. The value of poker as a tool in the marketing concept known as "branding" has warranted some ink, including a New York Post article covering the selection of Anheuser-Busch's World Select brand as the official beer of the World Poker Tour, and various WPT licensing deals. The reciprocal economic impact of poker and cable TV on each other has been addressed in many places. I found very interesting a recent business story about a cable company with more than one million subscribers that initiated an interactive subscription games service, with expansion plans to include poker. Donald Trump's poker deal with ESPN enjoyed wide coverage.

Poker has long been a college activity; witness Chip Reese's rise to prominence from games at Dartmouth in the '70s. One of the most heartening trends in poker news is the substantial reporting by dozens of college papers of campus tournaments, late-night poker games, and local students entering events. University papers at places like Penn State, the University of Alabama, the University of California, and even the Harvard Crimson have featured poker. There's a new generation of players learning the odds on America's campuses, and as college papers cover it, college poker clubs and tournaments continue to grow.

Reviews of poker-oriented books such as James McManus' Positively Fifth Street and Katy Lederer's Poker Face (both critically acclaimed, and both on my nightstand for future reading) are getting more coverage than they would have in the past, generating more readers and creating a cyclical compounding effect.

Not all the poker news reported is good for our industry. Some of the headlines are troubling. From the New York Times: "Web Engines (Google and Yahoo) Plan to End Online Ads for Gambling (poker included). From South Dakota's Aberdeen News: "Lottery Warns That Live Poker is Illegal." From the Green Bay Press Gazette and also featured in Wisconsin's Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: "Police Not Game for Bar Poker Tourneys" (subhead: "Authorities Tell Owners to Stop Illegal Gambling"). On a different day, the same Green Bay paper ran an article on the local district attorney's efforts to shut down live poker games. These stories were picked up by the Associated Press and distributed nationwide. And there's been coverage in various publications of contemplated federal legislation against poker, about which I have written in the past.

From the Associated Press: "Poker Night Costly for Raven's Fuller" (a story about a pro football player arrested for hosting a poker game at his home). The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports of an investigation into alleged improprieties by a local union leader, including hosting high-stakes poker games. Long Island's Newsday reports that the federal government is looking into allegations that food served at the governor of Connecticut's poker parties was paid for by the state.

As the game gets more public attention, it also gets more governmental scrutiny, and that perhaps casts a shadow on the long-term picture. These stories are a warning, and underscore the importance of the poker industry distinguishing itself from gambling.

Popular culture embraces and then abandons many fads and trends. But, as long as people keep writing about it, poker has the potential to avoid the fate of pet rocks, the Rubik's Cube, and disco, and be woven ever tighter into the fabric of the national identity. Our game has an allure that transcends faddishness. The growing press coverage reflects the increasing solidity of poker's place on the national scene.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. If you would like to ask Roy poker-related questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com.