Free Pub Poker as Popular as EverLeagues All Across America Serve Thousands of Players Each Night |
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In almost every corner of this country, free pub poker leagues that are held in bars have sprouted out of the fertile soil tilled by the recent poker explosion.
Some of the free poker leagues attract so many people in many different places, that they are able to offer their players chances to win trips and entry fees regularly to World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker events. The Dakota Poker League serving states in the upper Midwest and the Final Table Tour in Florida are two of the largest around.
"It's become quite popular," says Brook Lyter, the founder and owner of what started as the Dakota Poker League, a free bar league that has expanded into Minnesota and Nebraska.
The Dakota Poker League, as well as its offshoots, is just one of many local and regional leagues that have been formed around the country in the last two years. The leagues skirt state law because the players never actually wager anything at the events. The only thing that players need to buy are food and drinks, and only if they want to.
Lyter has seen his business more than double since last year. His business provides free poker games at 180 bars, attracting more than 4,000 players every week in the four states he serves. Each bar pays Lyter's company a small amount, and in turn, Lyter provides the games, league organization, website that features leader boards, and prizes that attract so many poker-loving patrons.
And the prizes are very impressive. Last summer, he sent eight people to the WSOP (three played in the $10,000 main event, five in a $1,500 event). A $10,000 freeroll was also held this summer. He also works with the Heartland Poker Tour, which sponsors and films medium-sized buy-in events around the Midest. All in all, more than $120,000 in free prizes was given away last year.
Players win prizes weekly at Lyter's events, and they also win points. The top point earners from each league advance to regional events. If they win there, they move on to state events, where the big prizes are awarded.
In Florida, Bob Danoff has his Final Table Tour. Like Lyter's company, Danoff attracts so many people in so many bars across the state that he's able to offer prizes that even professional tournament veterans would kill for.
Every 120 days, Danoff gives three $5,000 packages (plus traveling expenses) to WPT events. Unlike Lyter's league, to qualify for the regional events, players only must win a tournament at any of the bars. The more wins they get, the more starting chips they earn (each win is worth an additional 1,000 chips). The championship events are four-day affairs held at hotels across the state.
"We've been told that these are run better than the major tournaments in Vegas," Danoff says.
The top 11 players receive some sort of prize, from a full-size poker table and chips to entries into tournaments at the various casinos around the state (the "sponsorships" range from $120 to $1,000).
Other free pub poker leagues around the country offer varying degrees of prizes. Several are like the leagues Lyter and Danoff run, but there are many more with much more subtle prizes, like free drinks and gift certificates to bars and restaurants. Still, the leagues are expanding like brushfire, and games can be found just about anywhere.
Both Lyter and Danoff think they know why free poker is taking off so fast in America. They both say their leagues are made for people who like to play poker, but are not looking for the intense, cut-throat games that sometime develop when cash is involved.
"It's a great way to practice the game in a live setting, number one. Number two, it's a great way to be more social," Lyter says.
Danoff puts it this way:
"It's a socializing event. We've actually had poker weddings," he says. "And because they haven't paid anything, there was never a fight or an argument."
No wonder, thanks to bar leagues run by people like Danoff and Lyter, that poker is quickly becoming as common in bars as pool tables or a dart machines. With the popularity of poker still growing - thanks in part to the leagues - the future of poker remains bright in America, even in the dark of the bars across the states.
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