Heartland Poker Tour Finding Success on the RoadGreektown Casino in Detroit Will Brand its Cardroom Heartland |
|
It won’t be long before the Heartland Poker Tour reaches two milestones in both the world of poker and television. First, in May, someone will win part of a prize pool that will put HPT events over the $10 million-prize mark. Then, sometime in the fall, the 100th episode of HPT will be filmed, which is like going platinum in the world of television.
In a little more than three years, the HPT had carved out a wide swath among middle-American players who love the game and are looking for a fun and intense poker experience, but could never afford the big buy-in events that receive most of the attention. Co-founders Todd Andersen and Greg Lang wanted to build a series of events where casual poker fans could go and get a big-time feel. With the help of cooperating casinos in places like Verona, New York, and Onamia, Minnesota, they’ve done it.
HPT events could be the biggest bargain in poker. Before each event, a handful of $300 qualifiers are held. To feed these qualifiers, the casinos hold $45 and $80 satellites around the clock, and the HPT has had people win main events by starting in these satellites, because a majority of the players who play in the main events qualify through the smaller ones.
“There’s an old saying in Las Vegas that Las Vegas was built on quarter slot machines, and I would say that the Heartland Poker Tour is built on $300 players,” Andersen said. “We count on the fact that a lot of people are 9-5 people, they have regular jobs, this isn’t what they do for a living.”
Final table players are filmed, and the HPT is broadcast in syndicate to markets that total more than 80 million viewers. At a championship event that was held in Las Vegas in January 2007, one of the most well-known poker players in the world showed up. He said he was there to get on television. That’s when it was broadcast to an area that reached about 50 million homes.
The prize pools aren’t that bad, either, especially for players who are usually found playing the smallest stakes in the casinos. For example, the $1,650 event held recently at the Grand Casino Mille Lacs in Minnesota in February had 176 players compete. All but 36 of the players won their seats through qualifiers. The prize pool was $251,806, and the winner received $75,642, which was more than his yearly salary as a machine operator. The bios of the final table participants in many of the events read like the index of Stud Terkle’s “Working,” making the HPT the poker tour for the working class.
Also, all but one player at the final table of six were from Minnesota. The other player was from Wisconsin, and each event is packed with locals like that. Throw in a player-of-the-year competition and its no wonder HPT is celebrating milestones and garnering interest.
HTP recently finalized a contract with Detroit’s Greektown Casino to brand their cardroom with HPT gear. Foxwoods Casino has a same deal with the World Poker Tour.
Also, this past June, HTP launched a weekly poker league that’s held at 14 casinos around the country. Each week, players show up to play in tournaments that cost between $50 and $120. Players receive points and end up on a season leader board. HPT doesn’t take a dime from the buy-ins. The player with the most points at the end of a season wins an entry into an HPT event. Seats into $300 qualifiers are also awarded.
It’s a way for HPT to get into casinos where they’ve never been, and it also gives players who would be playing in weekly tournaments an added element of excitement, all while expanding the HPT brand name.
“I think people have an appetite for competition, and they want to be able to track how they do against other people,” Andersen said. “And it’s something to really appeals to other people, but it’s so new. We’re still trying to grow it; hopefully by the fall will have somewhere close to 30.”
Click here and scroll down to learn the back-story of Andersen and Lang and the HPT.
There are 13 more HPT events scheduled in casinos across the Midwest and beyond in 2008. They could be found by clicking here, then on “find a tournament,” then by typing in “heartland” into the box next to “keyword.”
Copyright © 2001-2024
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
