High Stakes Poker Gets New Legal US Sponsor
May 2, 2011 9:02 amFollowing ‘Black Friday’ wave after wave of poker show have been cancelled because of their affiliation with either Full Tilt or PokerStars.
Surprisingly, however, popular cash game show ‘High Stakes Poker’ (HSP) continued to air on the Game Show Network (GSN) despite PokerStars being the main sponsor of the programme.
Initially, High Stakes Poker decided to pull PokerStars references, including commercials although the site’s logos were still shown on the players at the table. Now, however, the show has finally got a new sponsor in the form of legal, US online poker room GoldStrike Poker.
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Based in the state of Georgia, GoldStrike Poker is a subscription-based site, which takes advantage of the grey area in the UIGEA law by charging a monthly membership fee, in this case $20. The players can then enter a number of free poker tournaments each month which pay-out cash prizes with technically speaking no monetary gambling involved.
As Gold Strike Poker spokesman John George explains: “With the FBI seizing the illegal poker sites, 50 million American poker players have no idea where to play poker. Gold Strike Poker is America’s only legal online 3-D poker site and is taking the leading position in the U.S. market.”
As Gold Strike Poker takes over the sponsorship for HSP, it is hoped that the show may now be able to reverse some of its recent disappointing ratings and reviews.
HSP’s popularity began to decline after AJ Benz and then Gabe Kaplan were replaced as the show’s hosts. HSP was then further hit by the exodus of Full Tilt pros after PokerStars became the show’s primary sponsor this season.
However, with PokerStars now out of the picture poker fans will be hoping to see the return of players such as Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius and Gus Hansen in Season 8.