To get his fledgling Chicago poker league off the ground, Gary Hazan bought 15 sets of chips from PokerChipMart.com and a dozen decks of cards from Costco Wholesale Corp.
“We had 45 people sign up in the spring,” said Hazan, the owner of Players Sports Group, a social club. “In October we’ll get more, and winter will be gangbusters.”
It’s hardly the only game in town.
A spate of card-playing television reality shows have dramatically raised the ante on poker’s profile. The game also has received the celebrity seal of approval from actors Ben Affleck and Tobey Maguire, both big players.
Now, a growing number of retailers are placing bets on poker products to lure shoppers and generate impulse sales. Crate & Barrel, Walgreen Co. and other merchants that don’t exactly conjure up images of green-felt hobbies find poker to be a hot retail hand these days.
“Poker is everywhere,” marketing firm Euro RSCG declared in a back-to-college forecast.
Take Nicolette Bond. The 24-year-old graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago played her first poker game three weeks ago.
“It seems like everyone my age knows how to play,” Bond said.
Last Christmas, poker products accounted for 10 percent of space in the men’s gift department for May Department Stores Co., the St. Louis-based chain that recently bought Marshall Field’s.
“This year, it will be in the 25 percent to 30 percent range,” said May Vice Chairman Bill McNamara.
He started noticing the trend last year, when his 19-year-old son began reading books about poker.
“At the time, I had no idea why,” McNamara said.
He is fully aware now.
Poker leagues, an increase in weekly games among friends and people looking for a unique gift are translating into trickle-down sales for retailers.
May, which sells chips, cards, tables and books, among other items, is dressing up its poker display.
“We’ll take the poker table and hang it from the ceiling and have a terrific visual impact that attracts the customer to the area,” McNamara said. All the poker goods will be clustered near the men’s department.
“Our merchandising philosophy is to make one powerful statement rather than scatter it,” he said. “We get a lot of women in the men’s store buying gifts, so we can sell it to them as well.”
May’s poker products include sets of chips starting at $25.
“Another one comes in a beautiful brushed-metal traveling case, with chips and cards, that is $100 retail,” McNamara said. “It’s a hot item.”
May chains carrying poker products include Filene’s, Kaufmann’s and Robinsons-May. At Marshall Field’s, the “timetable is a little later,” said McNamara. “I think they’ll be set up well at the end of September.”
TV fueling interest
Poker players are coming to the game largely through television.
Chris Milone, a member of the play-for-fun Chicago poker league, started playing six months ago, enticed by ESPN’s broadcast of the World Series of Poker.
Milone, 27, has since devoured 10 poker books. Some are how-to titles, but others are about the poker culture, including “Positively Fifth Street,” by James McManus, an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“I usually buy on Amazon, but I’ve bought some stuff from Barnes & Noble,” said Milone, an e-commerce worker for a financial-services company.
The World Poker Tour, whose tournaments air on the Travel Channel, announced in May plans for its “first wave of license agreements.” Publicly traded G-III Apparel Group Ltd. will try to sell a line of World Poker Tour sportswear and outerwear to major discounters and department stores.
“It’s early, but we do expect to be successful with it,” said G-III’s Wayne Miller, whose licenses include Timberland, Jones New York and Nine West. “We’ll target all incomes and ages.”
Sears joining mix
Poker also is a new category for Sears, Roebuck and Co., the nation’s leading recreation-room retailer through the sale of table-tennis, pool and other game tables.
The Hoffman Estates-based retailer carries two sets of poker chips but plans to add two more by November. It also has added a six-in-one casino game set and has begun positioning what used to be described as a “three-in-one bumper pool table” as a “three-in-one bumper pool and poker table.”
Next week, Sears begins stocking the products for the holidays. The Sears at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee already has the new offerings.
“There are a lot of sales to be captured,” said Georganne Greece, buyer for Sears’ game-room unit.
Others share the sentiment.
Crate & Barrel started selling poker goods a year ago and will expand its line to include, among other things, a $30 book titled, “Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats.”
Brookstone Inc., which began carrying poker products in 2002, has introduced a $150 set that includes 400, 11.5-gram chips.
“These look, feel and even sound like the chips in Vegas,” spokesman Robert Padgett said. “Chips are out there with 8, 9, 10 grams, but 11.5 are harder to come by.”
Likewise, Hammacher Schlemmer has an upgrade. For years it has sold a $100 “Instant Poker Table Top,” but starting in November it also will sell a $300 portable poker table.
Retailers, however, realize the winning streak won’t last forever.
“There’s a good chance that this Christmas will be the peak for it,” May’s McNamara said. “It could continue with all this TV activity, but I’d say it’ll peak in ’04 or ’05 and then start downward.”
– – –
Learning when to fold ’em and Texas hold ’em
The popularity of Texas hold ’em has grown beyond Las Vegas.
HOW IT IS PLAYED
Post the blind:
Predetermined forced bet to ensure action.
Hole cards:
Players are dealt two cards, face down.
The flop:
Dealer flips three cards face up on the table.
The river:
Dealer places a fifth card on the table.
Final hands are revealed. The best hand wins.
Player 2 has the winning hand (straight beats a pair)
Poker hands Ranked from best to worst
Royal Flush: A, K, Q, J, 10 of the same suit
Straight Flush: Five cards of the same suit in sequence
Four-of-a-kind: Four cards of equal value
Full House: Three cards of equal value and two cards of equal value
Flush: Any five cards of the same suit
Straight: Five cards of mixed suits in sequence
Three-of-a-kind: Three cards of equal value in mixed suits
Two Pair: Two pairs of cards of equal value
Pair: Two cards of equal value
High card: Single card with the greatest value
Source: How Stuff Works
Chicago Tribune
– See microfilm for complete graphic.
