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EVER since Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back by “Crooked Nose”
McCall in 1876 while holding aces over eights in the Dakota Territory,
the game of poker has had a slightly nefarious reputation. But time,
television and around 50m players a year nationwide have transformed the
game from a shady pastime to legitimate American sport, complete with
professional players and television contracts.
As
The Economist went to press the 35th World Series of Poker, the
game's crowning event, was drawing to an end, having attracted more than
2,500 participants (up from last year's 800), each submitting a $10,000
entry fee. So popular has the game become that Harrah's, a casino
company, recently purchased the WSOP for $30m.
The sport's new respectability was illustrated by the 2003 victory of
the aptly named Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee. Mr
Moneymaker's unlikely win (he qualified via a $40 stake in an online
poker tournament) has helped sell the game as a spectator sport.
Three separate cable television series now follow experienced players or
celebrities, such as Ben Affleck and Martin Sheen, matching nerves over
the no-limit “Texas Holdem” version of the game (in which five cards are
dealt face-up while each player receives two face-down “hole” cards and
then has to fashion the best five-card hand). Texas Holdem draws an
average of 2m viewers a week to its various broadcasts. Crucial to this
success has been the use of tiny “lipstick” cameras, which enable those
watching at home to see the two hidden hole cards, providing a level of
insider knowledge forbidden when the game made its first inroads into
popular culture.
Many aficionados consider poker the quintessential American game. It
expanded westwards with the country after being introduced around the
time of the war of 1812. The game's current popularity stems largely
from two events. The first occurred in 1970, when Benny Binion, a
colourful cove who was alleged once to have been a bootlegger in Dallas,
started the World Series of Poker at his Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas,
where it is still played today. At the time, Texas Holdem was a somewhat
obscure game played by cowboys in the Lone Star State; but these
happened to be the people with whom Binion cavorted until his death in
1989.
The
second push came in the mid-1980s, when California legalised high-stakes
poker. This lent a gentler patina to the game, according to James
McManus, who teaches a course on the literature and science of poker at
the Art Institute of Chicago (nice job, that). Rough-hewn cowboys gave
way to women and foreigners, a more middle-class clientele that, in
turn, attracted more players than ever before.
The
public is not the only group with a desire to wager in increasing
numbers. States grappling with looming budget deficits have increasingly
placed their bets on expanding the gambling industry. This is hardly a
new trick: after the revolutionary war, lotteries were used to pay for
schools. Later, the Depression sparked the rise of parimutuel horse
racing, which was followed by the rise of lotteries again in the 1970s
in states battered by inflation. Earlier this year New York state opened
a string of “racinos”, allowing slot-machine-style gambling at
racetracks. In 2003, 30 states considered new or expanded gaming
facilities at the ballot box or in city or state legislatures. Not all
of these had a poker dimension; but a little government blessing never
does an industry any harm. |
