Just minutes before event number seven of the WSOP a player at my table mentioned something about the thousands of players and spectators in the Rio Amazon Room. I made comment "That none of this would be here if it were not for the invention of the Pocket Cam". Everyone at table number 108 totally agreed.

I remember watching my first televised poker event in 1999 on a secondary sports channel. With three players left and it looked as if they were playing in an office with bright fluorescent lighting and no spectators. They showed every hand dealt and one of the players was reading a book while playing. It was the most boring poker event I ever witnessed.

Thanks to Henry Orenstein, patent holder of the pocket com, poker became interactive and exciting. Now televised poker is a futuristic game show where spectators at home can play along and make decisions as the hands develop. The pocket cam makes poker look easy and takes the guess work out of what cards the opponent holds. But the real clincher is when they pour all those millions of dollars on the table when only two players are left. Show me any interactive televised show with millions in cash, a game with no physical abilities, a place to learn and play the game online, and I will show you why poker keeps growing online and in every casino or card room.

As new comers to poker learned online from their own home, they could not wait to visit Las Vegas or their nearest live poker room. Over the past three years I watched all the major casinos in Las Vegas remove slot machines to make room for a new poker room or enlarge an existing poker rooms. Now if you say you are a "Dealer" in Las Vegas it’s assumed you deal America’s favorite pastime. But what really made me realize how far this game grew is when I saw more poker magazines publications than poker tables in the card room. Every magazine was loaded with online poker advertisements: Professional’s explaining how they learned or enhanced their game by playing online.

Nobody knew how big the game of poker actually became in the United States until the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed and signed by the President October 2007. Bill Frist (Former Rep Senate Majority Leader) who was instrumental in the passage of the UIGEA by attaching this bill to the Port Security Act. The Port Security Bill was a bill that had to pass. Unfortunately, Bill Frist underestimated how big online poker became and is no longer in politics. Jim Leach (Former Rep Congressman) who designed the UIGEA also underestimated and was not re-elected. Neither of them had any idea on how many millions of poker players they upset and many of them joined the Poker Players Alliance and made their voice heard in Washington DC.

I personally have many friends who are non poker players and they do not understand why or how the game became so big. Most non poker players consider it pure luck and associated luck with gambling. They don’t understand the skill of the game and it’s so much more than just playing the cards in your hand, like many beginners of poker play. For years they told me it’s a fad and all fads come and go. I disagree.

Poker is a game of skills that a non poker player does not understand. You only get better as you play. When you get better you never give it up. And every time I see a televised poker show I am sure that there is somebody else out there watching who will be lured into the game.

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