TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

Two guys in blue togas, breaking between parties, stand behind him giving advice as each card is turned by an invisible hand.

Bradpitts gets a full house and knocks swodog28 out of the game. He jumps a little in his chair, making his long blonde hair swing up.

“Ha ha, sucker,” he said. “I’m on a hot streak.”

It’s 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Before the night is through, Bradpitts will win the 10-person, $10 buy-in, no limit Texas HoldEm tournament, and the tournament’s $40 prize.

Bradpitts is one of many KU students who partake in one of the fastest growing pastimes on the Internet: virtual poker.

He asked that his online alias be used in place of his name because online poker is illegal by federal law.

The Federal Wire Wager Act, amended in 1994, prohibited betting over any “wire wagering facility,” including the Internet, according to the Kansas Gaming Commission.

Texas HoldEm Poker Web sites have sidestepped the law by operating from places where gambling is sanctioned. PartyPoker.com is located in Quebec, Canada, and is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission of the Mohawk Territory.

However, it is against the law for someone in the United States to wager on any site, regardless of the site’s location, unless he is in a place where gambling is permitted, such as Las Vegas.

Playing cards for money has a long tradition on college campuses, dating long before the Internet. David Hodges, who graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1949, said he used to play the game Pitch with friends at a local college hangout.

“If there was an open seat, you took it,” he said. “It was an informal thing, but we’d play for a little bit of money. In those days, a quarter was a pretty good sum.”

Since ESPN’s broadcast of the World Series of Poker gained unprecedented popularity last year, attracting more than one million viewing households, the sport’s popularity has increased among the ESPN demographic, mostly young adult males.

Other television stations sought to capitalize on ESPN’s success by broadcasting other poker tournaments, including the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and Celebrity Poker on Bravo.

Cole Robinson, Overland Park junior, said his favorite game when playing with his buddies is Texas HoldEm, the game usually played on television.

“It’s the most exciting form of poker,” he said. “In HoldEm, luck and skill have a nice balance. It makes for really entertaining poker.”

Because getting a game together is not always easy, many poker players are turning to the Internet, where tables are available at any time.

The most visited online site, PartyPoker.com, has grown to host 35,000 players during peak hours. The site, created in 2001, boasts a whopping 1,500 percent traffic increase in the last year. Other widely used poker Web sites include PokerRoom.com, PacificPoker.com and UltimateBet.com.

Bradpitts said he plays online mostly because it’s convenient. He can enter a 10-person table at any time, and he doesn’t need cash on hand. He transfers money directly to the site from his bank account.

But there are disadvantages to online poker. Besides being illegal, playing against unknown opponents takes some elements out of the game, like the need for a poker face. Also, it is possible for players to cheat by sharing what cards they have without the other players knowing.

A legal alternative some college students have found is CollegePokerChampionship.com, which is free to enter and awards winners with scholarships. This year, 13 students from the University have signed up to play in the tournament. The college tournament is legal because there is no entry fee.

Bradpitts said he would continue playing cards for cash as long as he keeps winning. He said he has won more than $300 this semester, almost as much as he’s earned working 15 hours per week at his on-campus job.

“Poker gets really addicting,” he said. “I do enjoy it, but making money is the main reason I started playing. There’s a lot of stupid people who play online that I can win money from.”