Poker has been appearing on television somewhat regularly since the late-1970s. In the United States, CBS started 🍏 airing the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event as an annual one-hour show around this 🍏 time and later by ESPN, which were casino-produced shows produced under a time-buy arrangement for sports omnibus programming such as 🍏 the CBS Sports Spectacular. For many years, the coverage was less than robust because viewers at home could not see 🍏 what cards the players had or follow their progress visually through graphics. Instead, the coverage essentially involved the commentators guessing 🍏 what cards the players had in a documentary style production.
In 1997, the hole cam, which allows audiences to see the 🍏 hidden cards that players held in their hands, was introduced in Europe. The hole cam was patented by WSOP bracelet 🍏 winner Henry Orenstein and first used in the Late Night Poker television series. It was used again in the inaugural 🍏 Poker Million tournament in 2000 which boasted the attraction of the first £1,000,000 poker game on live television. By 1996, 🍏 however, the ESPN one-hour highlight show only included hands that were shown down, so that the commentators, including Gabe Kaplan, 🍏 could comment, in post-production, on the hands while they were being played out. The commentators referred to this as "taking 🍏 a peek at the cards", and provided the first contemporary announcing on hands during the play in poker history. By 🍏 2001, however, Late Night Poker had been cancelled in the UK and televised poker could no longer be found in 🍏 Europe. In the US, the 1999, 2000, and 2001 World Series of Poker events were only broadcast in one-hour documentaries 🍏 on the Discovery Networks.
In 1999, documentary filmmaker Steven Lipscomb produced and directed a documentary on the WSOP for the Discovery 🍏 Channel. It was the first U.S. poker production funded entirely by a television network rather than the casino. When the 🍏 1999 WSOP aired, it doubled its audience over the hour time slot. Seeing the audience reaction, Lipscomb believed there was 🍏 an untapped market and began pitching poker series ideas to cable and network television. Because poker had been on the 🍏 air for over twenty years, with little viewer interest, broadcasters were unwilling to commit resources to put a series on 🍏 the air.
In October 2001, Lipscomb wrote a business plan. Along with poker player Mike Sexton and poker business woman Linda 🍏 Johnson, Lipscomb approached casino mogul and avid poker player, Lyle Berman, whose company Lakes Entertainment agreed to fund the World 🍏 Poker Tour (WPT)—the first organized and televised tour of poker tournaments in the world.
