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.
The hole cam was patented by WSOP bracelet winner Henry Orenstein and first used in the Late Night Poker television series.
Seeing the audience reaction, Lipscomb believed there was an untapped market and began pitching poker series ideas to cable and network television.
ESPN, who resumed their coverage of the World Series of Poker in 2002, featured pocket cam technology in their return broadcast—albeit, in a very limited capacity—prior to the WPT's first show.
The first WPT episode aired on March 30, 2003, on the Travel Channel and became an instant success (the highest rated show in network history).
This coupled with the unlikely outcome in the 2003 WSOP Main Event—where Tennessee accountant Chris Moneymaker won $2.5 million after winning his seat through a $39 PokerStars satellite tournament—and the ensuing publicity only further sparked the already accelerated interest in the game initiated by the WPT.
With the ability to edit a tournament that lasts days into just a few hours, ESPN's World Series of Poker broadcasts generally focus on showing how various star players fared in each event.
Key hands from throughout the many days of each year's WSOP Main Event are shown, and similar highly edited coverage of final tables is also provided.
With aggressive play and increasing blinds and antes, the important action from a single table can easily be edited into a two-hour episode.
Two of the defendants in that case, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, were the primary sponsors of most of the shows that were airing on American television at the time.
Although once popular, poker television programs have steadily been losing their audience and never fully recovered from the disruption caused by the Scheinberg lawsuit.
[6] In February 2023 on PokerGO's No Gamble, No Future Cash of the Titans, Patrik Antonius would win a $1,978,000 pot with two pair against Eric Persson to break the record set on Hustler Casino Live.