Jan. 3, 2004

A recent newspaper article hinted at the possibility that Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas might be shopping around to sell the prestigious World Series of Poker. This rumor has been circulating for quite a while, basically because Becky Binion Behnen, owner of the downtown Las Vegas casino and the tournament it presents every year, is a great rumor target. If Becky or anyone acting on her behalf has put any feelers into the universe, nobody's talking -- not the people we'd consider prime candidates for the purchase (Bellagio, Foxwoods, Harrah's or even the World Poker Tour) and certainly not Ms. Behnen.

Chances are fairly good, however, that the current owners of the Vegas Horseshoe won't profit from a sale of the name since their property is now sagging under the burden of an IRS lien. Should any recordable financial transaction take place, the taxmen won't be waiting with their hands out. They'll be closing their fists on what's owed them -- namely several months worth of employee tax contributions.

But could it be that sale or no sale it doesn't really matter what happens to the name or the tournament?

As of yesterday, the first day of the year 2004, I believe I saw last year's "Moneymaker series" being rerun on ESPN for the fourth time! Granted there are probably people who haven't seen it yet but a fourth time? That seems like overkill, or maybe it's just a technique the prestigious sports TV network is employing to make up for the fact that they overlooked the more lucrative World Poker Tour when it was up for grabs.

That's in hindsight, of course, because only a handful of people actually gave the WPT much of a chance at success -- and most of them were on the inside. However it is the very triumph of the WPT as a viable televised spectator event that might make the sale, non-sale, or even the closure of the World Series of Poker a moot point.

After all, with the WPT we get 13 different weekly contests that award prize money and the winner of each of these gets a free ride into the grand final to compete against other winners and anyone else who puts up the 25-grand buy-in.

The point, however, is that the World Series may have tradition behind it. It might have a volume or two of collected press information, and it might have been an annual staple on ESPN or the Discovery Channel. It might be mentioned in books. But none of that, not even the fact that it is featured in a Matt Damon movie, means it is sacred.

What's sacred is what appeals to the current crop of fans and how they've been educated.

The Travel Channel went all out advertising Steve Lipscomb's baby. They dramatized the event with creative commercials, focused on the individual professional players who may or may not be in the competitions, provided an immediate look at player hole-cards on every hand, as well as offering consistent, professional commentary from a poker pro whose excitement about the competition comes from the heart. In short, they sold the game to the American public and the American public bought it just as quickly as they bought every other survival series.

I'm not completely certain, and I don't have the money to do a study, but I'm guessing if you went around the country and asked a thousand people in each state to name a poker tournament, the World Series of Poker would come in second.

Of course the slow demise of the World Series of Poker saddens me. The first year I covered the event I did so by playing in the press tournament in what was my first hold'em game, my first tournament and my first no-limit experience. Every year thereafter the event offered the opportunity to meet up with fellow writers from around the world, to reconnect with poker personalities, and to experience a world of high-stakes gambling seldom seen up close by the average Jane or Joe.

So does it matter if the World Series of Poker finds a new owner or dies an agonizingly slow death? Yeah, it matters. It matters to the circuit players who make their living from this kind of series, to the side-game bonanza the event provides for ring-game regulars, to the sentimentalists who would preserve anything that made an impact on their lives and to the gaming industry of downtown Las Vegas which undergoes a month-long revival when the tournament comes to town.

The World Series of Poker, as Martha Stewart might say, "It's a good thing."