Poker’s population boom

LAS VEGAS – Baseball caps and dark sunglasses are back in fashion, and talk around casino hallways revolves around “bad beats” and “all-ins.” On golf courses and in hotel rooms, thousands of dollars are changing hands on whimsical proposition bets, and obscure card games are being played for rich stakes on a sea of green felt.

It must be that time of year again – it’s the World Series of Poker.

Thousands of the best players from around the world have gathered in Las Vegas, hoping to win the $10,000 buy-in main event, which last year paid $12 million to the winner.

Skilled practitioners of no-limit Texas Hold ‘em such as Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson and 11-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth Jr. will sit elbow to elbow with sports stars, Hollywood celebrities and relative novices in the world’s best-known poker tournament, which began Friday.

It’s come a long way since nine players played for cash and voted for a winner at the inaugural tournament at Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas in 1970.

Organizers have set aside enough space and staggered starting days to accommodate up to 12,000 players – far more than the 8,773 who participated last year. Those who survive the mathematically daunting prospect of reaching the final table of nine players on July 17 are guaranteed to have had luck on their side.

The odds of an unknown winning it all are probably not as long as might be imagined.

Except for Joe Hachem, who won in 2005, none of the last four winners made a living playing poker before upsetting the field. Chris Moneymaker, who set off the poker craze in 2003, was an accountant. Greg Raymer was a patent lawyer before winning in 2004. Last year’s winner, Jamie Gold, is a Hollywood agent and producer.

“Who knows?” said tournament spokesman Gary Thompson. “The next one might be a dentist, a plumber or maybe a poker pro.”

Gambling writer Avery Cardoza estimated there’s a 10-to-1 chance that an “unknown Internet player” will emerge from the field to win the big one, but pros such as Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey and Johnny Chan would have long shot odds of 250-to-1.

“There are perhaps 100 to 200 name players versus thousands of no-names,” he wrote in Poker Pro magazine. “Advantage: unknowns, by a landslide.”

Also unknown is what effect legal changes will have on the World Series of Poker. The tournament is being played after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law by President Bush last October.

Many expect the law, which prohibits banks and other payment processors from handling cash transactions from U.S.-based players to and from online poker sites, will thin the field of entrants who qualify for seats online.

“My prediction is somewhere between 5,500 and 6,500 (entrants),” said Eric Morris, publisher of Bluff Media, which publishes a poker magazine.

Sites such as FullTiltPoker.com, PokerStars.com and UltimateBet.com were still holding qualifying satellite competitions in which winning players could earn their entry fee into the main event, but many other sites have left the arena out of fear of prosecution by U.S. authorities.

Politicians are taking advantage of the hype surrounding this year’s event to make a statement against the new U.S. law.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., plans to show up Monday for a fundraiser and to raise support for a bill he introduced in June that would carve out a legal exception for “skill games” played online, such as poker, bridge, mahjong and backgammon.

“We should legalize poker and other skill games online, regulate it so it is safe, and reinvest the taxable income it generates into positive areas of our society,” Wexler said.

Celebrities also will grab some attention. Comedian Ray Romano, actor Brad Garrett, talk show host Montel Williams and actresses Shannon Elizabeth and Jennifer Tilly are among those expected to ante up.

Action seekers have found plenty to occupy themselves, whether in the tournament’s 54 other events that began June 1 or off the tables. Poker pro Erick Lindgren made more than $300,000 in a multiway bet for shooting less than 100 on four back-to-back rounds of golf in late June, according to RawVegas.tv, which filmed it. Card player Eli Elezra said he more than doubled his $198,984 win in one of the early events with side bets worth $310,000 with other players who wagered he would not win his first bracelet.

“Everybody heard about me, so I became a bookie,” Elezra said.