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The World poker Tour officially began in September 2001 when Steve Lipscomb conceived the idea. Steven Lipscomb developed his idea after watching the coverage of other poker events such as the World Series of Poker, Lipscomb felt that there was no excitement in the poker coverage being televised and he wanted to rejuvenate it making it more action packed for both the public and other professional poker players to watch. Lipscomb realised that although the final table had been televised before it lacked the excitement and true drama that was felt at the final table in major poker tournaments. Lipscomb decided that the best way for him to capture the drama was to use a revolutionary idea, which consisted of using 16 cameras, which are now known as the infamous "World Poker Tour-Cams" in order to give the viewer a greater insight into the player's strategy and position.
Once he had developed his ideas Lipscomb turned to Lyle Berman who was highly respected in the poker community and would be able to open a number of doors for the WPT as an investor and a poker player, Berman was also convinced that there was huge potential to be in the major league of poker and agreed to backing Lipscomb's project on a financially on a long term basis. The next goal to be achieved was to make sure that the World Poker Tour was played at the best casinos also to have the right people presenting the show so when Lipscomb approached the casinos he made them an offer that they couldn't refuse. What Lipscomb proposed would cost the casinos virtually nothing to host with a guaranteed two hour show being broadcast from their casino which would also be featured at least twice, the only real condition was that the casino would only televise poker exclusively for the World Poker Tour. In May of 2002 the WPT had signed enough members to be able to launch its first series with Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton as presenters and commentators, with former Playmate Shana Hiatt conducting the interviews and reports from each of the events.
Once the concept was developed the WPT found it hard to sell the show to a broadcaster until the Travel Channel ordered a full season giving the show a prime time Wednesday night slot with out actually viewing the tapes. On Sunday the 31st of March the show was broadcast for the first time and was an instant success, their prime-time average was 350,000 households with the first season of the WPT drawing in 1.2 million households per episode, with Americans all over the United States regularly tuning in to watch poker professionals from around the world battle it out across the table. In America today the New York Times estimates that there are between 50-80 million people who play poker on a regular basis with the increased number of players being attributed to the success of the WPT, which has also been accredited for rejuvenating poker as both a game and a sport.
Due to the huge success of the World Poker Tour a new poker tour has been created by WPT, this is called the PPT or the Professional Poker Tour. The Professional Poker Tour consists of a variety of tournaments in which the players only qualify by exhibiting their skills as a player; in return the tournament is set up on a freeroll basis, which means that the money that is staked into the game is not the player's buy-ins, but rather from sponsors.
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