Every gambler knows, the secret to surviving in knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.

Las Vegas is hopeful that the early returns in the annual World Series of Poker keeps the momentum going. The roughly 6 week long tournament which began over three weeks ago, is up almost 12% from the amount of entrants through the same point in the tournament series last year (they are basically at the half way mark with 30 of the 58 tournament results completed)

Raise!

Much like the Sportscard industry where Ebay has replaced the local baseball card show and neighborhood shop, on line gaming has put a dent in the live – cash games at Casino’s around the globe. The crackdown by the government effectively shutting down these sites may be a boon for the local establishments, or the backrooms at the golf course or VFW club for that matter.

On-line poker took a huge hit when the government basically shut down all of the operations this past year. This left many of the high rollers and big time gamblers with literally millions of dollars in total assets frozen in accounts, an no longer available to be paid out to the players that had established on line accounts. There was speculation from a number of folks that this might hamper the amount of interest as well as players for the biggest poker event of the year.

Layed down da monster…should have paid me off with dat…..

ESPN used to cover the Final Table of the World Series years ago. They still do..but now it is much more glorified. It was usually aired once instead of many times a week and was on at 2:30 AM in the morning, right after you got to watch lumberjacks doing log rolling and catching your favorite Australian Rules Football Team – Fitzroy kick their way to a slim victory.

That all changed with the popularity of poker. Bigger prizes, many shows on television on a variety of Networks including, Poker After Dark, The World Poker Tour, and the National Heads Up Championship to name a few.

Poker has become big business. Everyone can play it just about anywhere. Heck even the final table in the $10,000 Buy in tournament gets moved to the fall, where the players get to come back well after all of the other events are completed and finish the job on Prime Time Television on ESPN.

If someone wants to donate a few stacks of high society to Johnny to get a free chance to complete, just use the donation area below. I would be more than happy to write articles on behalf of the Soap- Boxers from a first person perspective covering the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Until Next Time, Stay classy Binion’s Horseshoe!