NEWS

The story below, written by Roy ‘The Boy’, appeared in the Racing Post during May.

Online poker, you have a job avoiding it these days especially if you have an interest in horse or dog racing as the chances are the race you are watching is sponsored by a website ending in …poker.com.

Football fans are not safe either, numerous top-flight teams send their players on to the field sporting a website address of an organisation which has an online poker room as part of its portfolio.

But poker is also contaminating our televisual airwaves with almost wallpaper coverage. Gone has some of the classics such as Danish tractor puling or Kabaddi from India and in its place is poker, lots of it. Who knows, that great Beeb presentation, the University Boat Race, might event be under threat.

Heading the cast is Barry Hearn’s Matchroom Sport who are churning out hours and hours of it for satellite stations ranging from Bravo to Challenge, plus his allies at SKY Sports and, for terrestrial viewers, Channel 5.

Other independents offering their fare to the abundance of content hungry broadcasters include Winmedia and Emblaze Productions. There is, of course, a specialist poker channel, Poker Zone, which can be found on channel 843 and SKY’s very own presentation on channel 846.

It was Cardiff-based production company Presentable started the craze with the groundbreaking Late Night Poker on Channel 4 and they continue a relationship with the broadcaster to this day.

However, poker traditionalists much prefer multi-player events ahead of the en-vogue ‘made for television’ 6-player shootouts and to their rescue has come John Duthie, ironically a former television director for Channel 4, who switched his attentions to televised poker after winning the inaugural Poker Million and banking the accompanying £1 million cheque.

Duthie created the European Poker Tour in 2004 which is both played and broadcast across Europe on five channels including Eurosport and Challenge in the UK.

Earlier this month the season finale of the EPT took place in Monte Carlo attracting 706 players paying €10,000 entry apiece and creating a €1,825,010 first prize.

Putting that into some kind of perspective, there was only one recorded bet at last week’s Craven meeting that surpassed the EPT entry fee and the winner’s purse can only be matched in the super-rich world of international golf.

However, it is worth pointing out the World Series of Poker – poker player’s summertime pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the World Championship and around forty other tournaments – sees more prize-money allocated than the entire PGA and ATP tours combined. Individual tournaments often generate enough money to clear the national debt of Chile.

With so much money on offer is it any surprise that almost every snooker player in the world top ten are trying their hand at poker? They are not alone, although soccer players and jockeys are forced to keep their card-playing activities low-key.

So what’s the message here? Poker is a fast moving, exciting and major craze both on and off the tables. Craze? That’s an ironic phrase considering the game of poker has been in existence for well over a centaury. The terms renaissance and industry are surely more fitting and what an industry to become involved in.

Where to start then.

Well, I should be signing the virtues of being a professional poker player but, the plain and simple truth is more people loose than win and, of course, those that win do win more than the average person looses. Follow me?

I conceded the average age of a final table finisher at one of these EPT events is early 20’s and the vast majority of the winners are Scandinavian clad in retro clothing and have used enough hair spray to burn a hole in the o-zone.

Does this mean the old timers, you know those of us in their 30’s, are finished? No, it simply means a new younger and hungrier breed of gamblers are doing the rounds and substantially outnumbering old school cautious poker player.

There’s that word poker players hate, ‘gambler’, most would argue that tournament poker is NOT gambling instead risk assessment, something that is respectable. Indeed, the difference between a stock-market trader and a poker player is far narrower than you might think.

So how do you get a step on to this juggernaut, become involved in the poker industry or even the wider spectrum of gaming? As the industry grows, and no statistic indicates even a slowing in poker’s prosperity, more and more positions are becoming available.

It’s only a matter of time before live televised poker events become commonplace – possibly in the same way Jai-alai (a group of men playing some kind of squash-type game resulting in a winner, runner-up and third-placed finisher meaning wins, forecasts and tri-cast bets can be placed on them) is transmitted/simulcasted into betting outlets in America – and high-street betting firms will require odds compilers.

National newspapers are gradually introducing poker columns, whist doing away with the more traditional bridge and chess, and there are an ever increasing number of ‘poker news’ websites all in need of reporters. If you can write and you know the first thing, I’d suggest you can find employment in this sphere.

The biggest single driving force behind poker’s unbelievable growth however is online poker rooms. They have given people the ability to play poker regardless of their location in the world against thousands of rivals for any stakes they choose.

It has been these poker sites that have funded the aforementioned television production companies in order to promote the game and boast their ability to stage it.

Generating millions in turnover one, Party Gaming, was launched on the London Stock Market and immediately went into the FTSE 100 worth more than ICI or British Airways.

All of these online gaming sites are based ‘off shore’ in places such as Malta, Gibraltar and Costa Rica. Not the worse places to go to work but beyond mundane customer enquiry positions your best ‘in’ as an employee at one of these companies is probably as a ‘poker manager’.

But, of course, to boast poker managing credentials experience is needed and that can only be gained from land-based casinos.

Experience as a dealer will not only open opportunities within online poker world but as a live dealer and I can only imaging what thrill it must be dealing the final table of a million pound tournament as an exotic location such as the Caribbean, Monte Carlo or even on a cruise.

I’ll now, and grudgingly on the insistence of the editor, return to the world of professional poker playing.

It can be done and is done handsomely by numerous people but, dare I say it, patience and discipline is key and that is not a trait the average Englishman boats.

I maintain the average British player sees the game as light hearted entertainment and enjoy nothing more than dropping their hard earned after a session in the pub during the weekend.

If you think you are different go ahead and give it a try but be dedicated, forget the enjoyment of playing, instead enjoy spending your winnings, and set realistic targets which are related to your bankroll. In no other forms of speculation is a staking system more important.

Serial tournament winner Roy “The Boy” Brindley is sponsored by and writes courtesy of ladbrokespoker.com –