Poker is an age-old game that took on new-age significance once it was technologically molded into engaging entertainment for television.
It's the essence of the 38th annual World Series of Poker, which began June 1 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and will reach a crescendo Tuesday when players assemble at the coveted final table of the Main Event, the $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold'em Championship.
The winner will walk away with millions.
When Harrah's Entertainment acquired WSOP from the defunct Binion's Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas several years ago, it reached out to the company's newly appointed vice president of sports entertainment marketing, Jeffrey Pollack, as the tournament's first commissioner.
In less than two years, the 1986 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism has led a team that has transformed the WSOP into a marketing juggernaut.
The Thrifty Gambler talked with Pollack about the WSOP's exponential growth.
The Thrifty Gambler: What are the unique challenges of marketing poker?
Jeffrey Pollack: The challenges are not unlike the challenges that almost any sports property faces when it's in start-up mode. And we are. I think of the WSOP as a 38-year-old start-up. Until my team's arrival here, there really wasn't much business behind the WSOP. It was really just the tournament. What we have done in the last 20 months is start to reposition the World Series, and really poker as a whole, as a viable, legitimate and high-impact agent of change for consumer product companies.
TG: Can poker be compared to other sports?
JP: The WSOP is very much like an entire sports season compressed into 48 days. We have a beginning, middle, an all-star event (the $50,000 HORSE tournament), and we have a championship at the end, the Main Event.
TG: How about the gambling aspect?
JP: It is poker, and it is Las Vegas, and that does make it a little different, but we think that's OK. ... We're not for every company, but we're for a lot of companies, especially companies that are interested in platforms that are different, engaging and have a high degree of direct touch with its consumers.
TG: Is having the tournament covered by ESPN a major plus?
JP: It says a lot. We are what sports fans like to watch. And while it's not an athletic competition, it's still competition. And the great poker players are exceedingly smart; you have brilliant people. There's a lot of strategy and a lot of skill. It's very pure competition, albeit nonathletic.
Casino news
The Chicago Powerboat Club will hold the third annual Chicago Poker Run benefiting Children's Memorial Hospital July 20 and 21. As many as 85 boats, each valued as much as $1 million and capable of attaining speeds of 200 mph, are expected with entries from as far away as Florida, Texas and New York.
The run starts and ends at the East Chicago Marina with stops in Hammond, Indiana and Monroe Harbor in downtown Chicago in between. Boaters receive playing cards at each stop. At the end of the run, prizes are awarded for the best poker hands.
FYI: www.chicagopowerboatclub.com
The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at jbrokopp@comcast.net.
