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News from Texas Holdum - January 06, 2009

EVER since Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back by "Crooked Nose" McCall in 1876 while holding aces over eights in the Dakota Territory, the game of poker has had a slightly nefarious reputation. But time, television and around 50m players a year nationwide have transformed the game from a shady pastime to legitimate American sport, complete with professional players and television contracts.

As The Economist went to press the 35th World Series of Poker, the game's crowning event, was drawing to an end, having attracted more than 2,500 participants (up from last year's 800), each submitting a $10,000 entry fee. So popular has the game become that Harrah's, a casino company, recently purchased the WSOP for $30m. The sport's new respectability was illustrated by the 2003 victory of the aptly named Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee. Mr Moneymaker's unlikely win (he qualified via a $40 stake in an online poker tournament) has helped sell the game as a spectator sport.

Three separate cable television series now follow experienced players or celebrities, such as Ben Affleck and Martin Sheen, matching nerves over the no-limit "Texas Hold'em" version of the game (in which five cards are dealt face-up while each player receives two face-down "hole" cards and then has to fashion the best five-card hand). Texas Hold'em draws an average of 2m viewers a week to its various broadcasts. Crucial to this success has been the use of tiny "lipstick" cameras, which enable those watching at home to see the two hidden hole cards, providing a level of insider knowledge forbidden when the game made its first inroads into popular culture.

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Many aficionados consider texas holdum the quintessential American game. It expanded westwards with the country after being introduced around the time of the war of 1812. The game's current popularity stems largely from two events. The first occurred in 1970, when Benny Binion, a colourful cove who was alleged once to have been a bootlegger in Dallas, started the World Series of Poker at his Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas, where it is still played today. At the time, Texas Hold'em was a somewhat obscure game played by cowboys in the Lone Star State; but these happened to be the people with whom Binion cavorted until his death in 1989.

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The second push came in the mid-1980s, when California legalised high-stakes poker. This lent a gentler patina to the game, according to James McManus, who teaches a course on the literature and science of online texas holdum at the Art Institute of Chicago (nice job, that). Rough-hewn cowboys gave way to women and foreigners, a more middle-class clientele that, in turn, attracted more players than ever before.

Also, he said, "Two other casinos have called this week (asking him to organize poker tournaments). Hopefully we can make a (poker tournament) circuit. "He said when Turning Stone opens its 5,000-seat events center this fall it will open many possibilities for future televised events.