WSOP Poker Room Causes Controversy

One of the most interesting discussions in poker this week is the continued debate on Harrahs opening an online poker room. 888 Holdings are contracted to develop software for as early as 2010 for there to be a branded WSOP poker room. It appears like it is only a matter of time before the world sees another large poker room, but this time with the backing of the WSOP brand behind it.

This development has had a mixed reaction from the poker community. This issue has previously been raised by Full Tilt Poker owner Howard Lederer who suggested in a podcast recorded over one year ago that this was how he envisaged the development of online poker with the WSOP owners releasing a branded poker room to compete at the top of the market.

It is widely believed that Harrah’s looked at the large amounts of money made by the biggest poker websites and want a piece of the pie. Poker sites make a lot of money from promoting the WSOP and having many satellites into the events. They also make a lot of money from the coverage of the WSOP on television and they have many people employed to negotiate deals with players late in the events to get their logo on their shirts. From all accounts, it is a frantic race to sign up players at this time as television coverage is an essential part of their marketing plans.

The poker rooms are also concerned that they already send a lot of players to the World Series of Poker and in turn are helping to promote that brand. Their tournaments like Pot Limit Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Badugi and Triple Draw are all populated largely by players who have learned to play the games from participating in online poker tournaments.

One player on the 2+2 pokercast used an interesting analogy to demonstrate the potential conflict of interests. Harrah’s opening a poker room would be like NBC (television network) saying to McDonalds and Burger King they were going to open an NBC Burger Bar and advertising it extensively on their network, but still offering to advertise Burger King and McDonalds along with it. Whilst the advertisers would be still receiving exposure they would have to pay what would be their competitors for the privilege. Going back to the poker, Harrah’s could ban the other sites from having satellites into the WSOP which would massively harm the large poker rooms who depend on the close links to the series for their prestige in the market and to a certain extent, their authenticity.

Phil Hellmuth has gone on record to French media criticising Harrah’s on this issue. He has his own axe to grind against Harrah’s as despite them using his name and image to promote the WSOP they refused to pay for his hotel room this summer. Hellmuth is also the poker coach of Jeff Shulman, who is on the main event final table and has previously pledged to throw the main event bracelet in the trash if he wins. The introduction of the new poker room unrests the system that currently works in everyone’s interest. The online poker sites make a lot of money from running high profile satellites and promoting their links to the WSOP whilst Harrah’s makes a lot of money by the sites both sending the players to the series and from their coverage of it.

There has been talk, although it is only talk at present, of a breakaway series being formed by a coalition of poker rooms who may want to take a stand at Harrah’s. The success of which would be dependant on whether the online players play a satellite to get into the WSOP or just play a satellite to get into a big live tournament. Considering a lot of professionals are contracted to other poker rooms, it would be difficult for them to appear at the series without consent from their employer poker rooms and this would hurt the TV coverage of the WSOP for Harrah’s as the coverage usually centres around the known players, few of which would be present if a split occurred.

It is only three months until the potential launch of the room, it is worth mentioning that the WPT also tried to launch a poker room and it failed to ignite the public’s interest with the restriction of only being affiliated to the WPT and no other tournaments proving its downfall. This is another interesting poker story that we will keep a close eye on. My own feelings are the other poker rooms could not co-exist well enough to make a breakaway tour happen and may just have to accept that Harrahs have a poker room that competes against them. It will ultimately be up to the poker public to decide whether their room is good enough or not, but certainly sites like bwinpoker.com, Stars and Full Tilt will still retain customers due to their good reputation gained over many years.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: harrahs, online poker, poker debate, wsop