Televised Poker Set To Return in COVID-19 Era

Published on October 31st, 2020 3:22 pm EST

The height of the "poker boom" came in 2006.

That year, Jamie Gold outlasted 8,772 players to take down the World Series of Poker main event.

"High Stakes Poker" was also born that year and quickly became the most popular poker show on television.

The show ran for seven years, producing some of the most memorable moments in the history of televised poker.

Daniel Negreanu's incredibly bad luck. Tom "durrrr" Dwan's epic hands against Barry Greenstein and others. Brad Booth's crazy (and successful) bluff against Phil Ivey.

The list goes on and on.

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The show sadly went off the air after "Black Friday" took place in 2011.

Interest in the United States in poker programming dipped dramatically, and this forced most poker TV shows off the air.

It's a different era now, however, with online gambling slowly getting legalized across the United States. This has led to greater interest in the United States for poker programming, and as a result, "High Stakes Poker" has been resurrected by Poker Central (via PokerGo).

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On December 16th, the first episode of the eighth season of "High Stakes Poker" will air on PokerGo.

The list of players participating hasn't been released as of yet, though you can be sure that the show is hoping to get the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Daniel Negreanu and Patrik Antonius back on the show.

The show will be filmed at the "PokerGo" studio at the ARIA, and all players participating will need to take rapid COVID-19 tests before they film.

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Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, "High Stakes Poker" will likely have a much smaller talent pool to draw from, as they'll need to rely on players who are already in the United States.

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Filed Under: Poker on Television