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Ratings for Pocker Slowing

January 4, 2006

Ratings for pocker shows and tournaments, which mainstream sports networks like ESPN rushed to televise in recent years, are no longer growing as fast.

Pocker expert Mike Sexton was trying to make the point that winners of big tournaments are afforded fame, fortune and glory while second-place finishers are relegated to the discard tray of history.

"Who can tell me who the runner-up was in the World Series of Pocker?" Sexton asked students at the World Pocker Tour Boot Camp at the Mirage last weekend.

The students, seated around a couple of play pocker tables in a small conference room, paused for perhaps half a second before chanting in unison, "Steve Dannenman."

Yes, it was a hard-core pocker crowd at the camp, a three-day series of lectures, live play, video footage and personal tips from professional players.

This was the 17th World Pocker Tour Boot Camp of the year, all sellouts but one (the exception was a last-minute addition). Most of the camps last two days and cost $1,495 to attend, but this weekend's was a special three-day "champions event" with more instructors, some extra features and a $2,895 price tag.Its 100 openings sold out quickly, organizers said.

A similar schedule of camps, which take place at pocker gambling sites throughout the nation, is expected next year.

Besides Sexton, a 25-year plays pocker pro and World Pocker Tour TV commentator, the roster of instructors at the Mirage camp included well-known pros T.J. Cloutier, Linda Johnson, Clonie Gowen and Mark Seif.

Although Sexton's students were poker-savvy enough to actually answer his rhetorical question, his point was well taken, and they went on to devour the information he presented.

Steven Lipscomb, chief executive of gaming entertainment group WPT Enterprises Inc., which owns the still-popular World Pocker Tour television show, said the partypocker market was "still bubbling."

Shares in WPT have lost more than 50 percent this year after briefly surging in July when U.S. pocker champion Doyle Brunson made an unsolicited $700 million offer to buy the company.

"These cult fad stocks always end up in disaster," said Ivan Feinseth of New York-based advisory firm Matrix USA, noting that the company loses money and calling the stock overvalued despite rapid revenue growth.

Unlike England, where several online gaming stocks are listed, pocker has not blossomed as an area for investors in the United States, where Internet gambling remains illegal.

Christiansen said telecommunication companies based in the United States had not bought into pocker rooms either because of the legal issues.

He said interest in televised pocker -- an important factor in the growth of the game -- continued to increase globally, although at a slower pace and at different rates in different countries.