Tour Boosts Blackjack Popularity

The comparison between gambling sites and land based casinos can teach us another lesson, namely that the success that tournaments have brought to Blackjack tables may soon be emulated thanks to the Ultimate Blackjack Tour.

The Ultimate Blackjack Tour, which will be aired on CBS, will both have more Blackjack players try their luck to make it into the Tour and will serve to expose Blackjack to new crowds. The World Poker Tour before it helped promote Poker tournaments at land based casinos, on TV and across gambling sites everywhere. Players can practice their skills at any of these venues, e.g. by watching experts on TV, practicing for free online or actually playing at the land based tables.

Las Vegas has seen great numbers of Blackjack players walking up and down the Strip these past several days. The Venetian hosted for the first time the Blackjack Tour. The event included a grand prize pool of over $100,000. Only six players made the final stage of the tour at the Venetian. They will be flown over to Los Angeles in January, all expenses paid for, and compete in a live UBT, which will air later on CBS.

Other than the winners of the Blackjack event, which is highly considered, the entire gambling world is expected to benefit from the event. Certainly the game's reputation will spread across the Internet and gambling world, people will sit in front of TV and learn what fun the game offers, and players will compete and play online in efforts to improve at the game and one day compete in the Tournament of Champions for the $1 million guaranteed first prize, and part of the estimated $2-3 million prize pool.

As the founder of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, Russ Hamilton, said, "Since the show has started airing on CBS, UBT has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the gaming world." In describing the effect of the tournament as a "win-win" situation for everyone involved," he must have had the online casino world in mind as well. Land based casinos and websites are related, and the bond that ties them together is a single one - the games and the players who play them.