2008 World Series of Poker Final to be Delayed, Broadcast Live

With the incredible growth in popularity of poker, it should come as little shock that ESPN, Harrah's and WSOP would look to broadcast the World Series of Poker Final live.  But in doing so, the event would need to take place in October, rather than in July, when it typically takes place.

The always reliable Wicked Chops Poker was first to break the 2008 World Series of Poker Final Live Broadcast rumors.

Play would be halted this July once the field was whittled down to its final nine players, and then delayed until three months later. The idea is to make the final table a big television event with plenty of lead time to hype the finalists and so no one knows who the winner is until the show airs.

What we're personally hearing is that the final table would not actually broadcast live but would be filmed on a closed set at a later date, then edited and broadcast about two days later.

A decision hasn't been made yet, according to our sources, but officials are leaning towards making this happen.

There is a growing fear that with recent online poker prohibition the World Series of Poker and Vegas may stand to lose millions more dollars following a sharp decline in attendance last July. 

Last week, The Federal Reserve said they are carefully considering all comments received on rules for a law banning bank and credit card payments to illegal Internet gambling sites during a Congressional hearing related to the enforcement (or inability to enforce) the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.

The move will not only attempt to make the WSOP more exciting again, it will also help to boost the Las Vegas economy. 

Last year's World Series of Poker final paid out $8.2 million to California psychologist Jerry Yang.  Sounds great, but that's actually a far cry from the peak winnings of controversial Hollywood agent Jamie Gold, who eventually took home $12 million.  The amount of money won is based on the number of entries.  The sharp decline in attendance at last year's event resulted in a $4 million prize reduction. 

WSOP must now compete with European poker events including this week's very popular European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo on April 12

The online poker rooms are once again generating buzz for the 2008 World Series of Poker.  World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event Satellites were launched by DoylesRoom last week.  The legendary poker pro was forced out of the US market for a brief time following passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com

Originally published April 7, 2008 11:11 am EST