What's next? "ABC's Wide World of Craps?" "Slots for Tots" on Fox? "Roulette Wheel of Fortune" in syndication?
Don't laugh. The line between reality and parody is getting blurrier in the high-stakes world of televised gambling.
On Thursday, CBS announced yet another potential introduction for the youth of America to a future of fun and profit, or perhaps financial ruin and rehab.
Poker? No. Been there, done that. This time it's an even more familiar, accessible game.
The "Ultimate Blackjack Tour" debuts Sept. 16 for a 10-show run, followed early in 2007 by a second season.
Blackjack? Isn't that more about odds than strategy?
"I think it's clearly an offshoot of the success poker has had on television," CBS Sports senior VP of programming Rob Correa said of the blackjack show. "But it's a different format, a different game.
"It's a simpler game, one probably more familiar to more people, but the way it is being produced, it's got some interesting twists, as well."
For several years, poker has filled countless hours cheaply on cable channels, often with decent ratings, low costs and built-in gambling-related sponsors.
Many in the business believe the fad has crested. But the consensus is that it is far from over, with millions of young people still gathering to play Texas Hold 'em and other card games.
For most, it's harmless, and might even improve math and analytical skills. For others, it is practice for when they have adult money to lose.
Arnie Wexler of Wexler Associates, a longstanding expert on compulsive gambling, called the poker boom and TV's complicity "a joke. Or I should say, it's no joke."
Now the broadcast networks have joined in. NBC is televising the second year of the "National Heads-Up Poker Championship," which ends Sunday. It has drawn respectable ratings, including a 1.3 in major markets this past weekend.
In June, CBS offers the "Intercontinental Poker Championship." Then it's on to blackjack.
Does CBS worry about promoting gambling? Correa said the network does not permit ads for gaming sites on the shows and that its standards and practices department monitors everything.
"People are exposed to all different types of things," he said. "It's a regulated game. With restrictions we put on sponsors, we're comfortable with it."
Yes, TV gambling is everywhere, from NBC's "Deal or No Deal" to fantasy football to a reality golf show currently on CBS in which players can win big money by making a series of pars.
Still, poker and blackjack are in a different category. They are about gambling.
Wexler said one-third of all calls to his hotline during the past two years have come from people under 25 hooked on poker, live or on the Internet.
Three years ago, when Wexler spoke to young people in Las Vegas, 80 percent of their betting was on sports. Now, he said, 80 percent are into poker. "This thing has turned around so quickly," he said. Wexler said he gets calls from children as young as 12.
"To me, this is the crack cocaine of 25 years ago," he said. "[Media executives] do not know what the hell they're doing with this, but they're creating a real monster."
source: newsday.com
