World Poker Tour

World Poker Tour features the participation of nearly all professional poker players in the world in a succession of poker tournaments. It was founded by television producer and lawyer, Stephen Lipscomb, who is now serving as Chief Executive Officer of World Poker Tour Enterprises, the firm controlling the World Poker Tour events.

The World Poker Tour is deemed to have started the “revolutionary way” of how the game of poker is played, followed, enjoyed, and viewed. Although the “World Series of Poker” had been broadcasted for years prior to the airing of World Poker Tour (WPT), the WPT cameras placed around the poker table enabled viewers around the world to experience “seeing” what poker hand a player has, creating an involvement with viewers and elevating the poker game.

The tour launched its first season between the later part of 2002 and early 2003. It climaxed with April 2003’s World Poker Tour Championship held at “Bellagio Casino” in Las Vegas. The tour’s first season was broadcasted in spring 2003 on the “Travel Channel”. On the 1st of February 2004, the tour made its “network debut” on NBC, featuring a special tournament “Battle of Champions”.

A collection of “Texas Hold’Em” poker tournaments, the World Poker Tour is held internationally, although largely in the US. The World Poker Tour TV show has paved the way for table game “boom” all throughout American homes, as well as poker rooms in local casinos, and even online.

The major sponsors of the WPT are online poker websites and casinos; it is also co-hosted by Mike Sexton (World Series of Poker champion) and actor Vince Van Patten. The hosts of the show, Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton, record their remarks about the “hole cards” after the tournament has taken place as “state gaming regulations” prohibit the hosts from seeing live broadcast of “hole card cameras”.

The World Poker Tour is held in various locations around the globe, and is open to anybody ready to pay its entry fee, which can at times be as high as $25,000 for every seat. These days, on top of the best players being seen in the tour, other players like CEO’s, software kings, rocket scientists, mathematicians, actors, women, and even millionaires, brush “shoulder to shoulder” at tables and compete to be the best.

With the show’s success, and being one step ahead for new levels in the world of poker, the WPT announced in September 2004 its World Poker Tour schedule of tournaments for the seasons 4, 5, and 6, covering until 2008. They also announced the making of a “special” poker tour exclusively for professionals called “Professional Poker Tour”. The main difference for this tour lies on the “criteria for entry”, which will no longer be based on “willing to pay” but on the player’s previous success in tournament play.

In 2004, World Poker Tour produced a “Walk of Fame”, introducing poker legends Gus Hansen and Doyle Brunson, including actor James Garner. Currently, the tour still remains to be one of the premier rated cable TV programs, and airs every Wednesdays on “Travel Channel”. The World Poker Tour has expanded making an offer to its common stock, and completing agreements to have its show presented in Sweden, Australia, Philippines, and South Korea.

World Poker Tour is the “Travel Channel’s” top rated program ever since it was launched; the great poker games on the show that follows WPT tournaments in casinos all over the country, as well as the thrill of thousands of dollars being placed on poker tables, has made every viewer’s heart racing as they follow every hand of the event, to a player’s success of being “instant” millionaires.