World Poker Congress Ready to Unite Online and Land Sectors

by Elizabeth Nguyen, News Staff Writer

April 25, 2009

If there is anything that gives more credence to the game of poker, it is none other than the World Poker Congress. Heck, with a name like "World Poker Congress" it's got to be important, right? In all truth, the WPC is only four years old. Initiated to really help out the online poker sector, the WPC now focuses on both the brick 'n mortar and online sectors of the most popular card game in the world.

The next "congressional meeting", if you will, of poker professionals is set for June 24th-25th, 2009 in Porto, Portugal. To be exact, the show is scheduled to go down at the Sheraton Hotel and Spa. So, in other words, this year's World Poker Congress will be attended by a bunch of well tanned and manicured poker executives. And if you throw in the element of massage, well then, you might even get some limber executives.

However, that's pretty unlikely. By the sounds of it, the WPC is anything but fun and games. One of the keynote speakers is World Poker Tour CEO, Steve Lipscomb, who will be heading up a discussion entitled "Remaking the Poker Market" (whatever that means). Lipscomb was recently quoted in a press release, citing the World Poker Congress is not like other conferences. While there is still plenty of networking taking place at the WPC, the "decision-makers" of the most influential poker companies in business today are there to do strictly that - engage in business.

The biggest challenge the World Poker Congress faces is getting brick 'n mortar and online poker companies to do business. Obviously, when regulation - of should I say lack of regulation - doesn't foster such types of business partnerships, this can be an impossible task. However, with new innovations in online gaming, strong demand for online poker, and the focused efforts of....well, this year's WPC, this gap is being bridged real fast.

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