World Poker Tour the Tournament of Champions

The World Poker Tour (WPT) gather all the best professional poker player and putting them in a chain of worldwide poker tournaments. WPT was first held in the United States by Steven Lipscomb a known producer of television shows. At present Lipscomb is WPT Enterprise's Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

The WPT television program has push the popularity of table games all over American homes, in almost all local casino rooms and in the internet. World Poker Tour's major sponsors are conventional casinos and internet poker sites. The key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. Mike Sexton, a WSOP winner and Vince Van Patten a television actor co-host WPT which is an international organization. Shana Hiatt is the show's secondary reporter during its first three regular seasons. She was then followed by Courtney Friel, and in its fifth season Sabina Gadecki handles the job. Kimberly Lansing and Layla Kayleigh started acting as hosts in its sixth season.

The tour makes its season debut in the last months of 2002 and early months of 2003, culminating with the WPT Championship. This was held at Bellagio's in April, 2003.

The show made its network debut On February 1, 2004, WPT debut on NBC featuring a "Battle of Champions" event. Season 1 to season 5 was aired at The Travel Channel. In April 2007, WPTE broadcast that GSN will take care of the television broadcasts of the tour that was April, 2007. Mirage poker Showdown was the initial WPT event that was broadcasted on GSN and aired on March 24, 2008.

Not all segments of the show are broadcast live by its hosts; Mike and Vince because certain state laws prohibit the viewing of live feeds specially that which concerns "hole card cameras". As a result the show is a mixed-up of live recording and post interviews.

WPT's drawing power comes from patrons who can give a buy-in (a sum between the amounts of $2,500 to $25,000) or for players winning a satellite event can play against the world's top poker players.

In 2004, the management of World Poker Tour initiated the Walk of Fame, whose aim is to induct great poker legends.

World Poker Tour airing for the sixth season continues to lure audiences and still remains as one of most top rating t.v. shows on cable. The show airs on Game Show Network every Monday night. Season 1, 2 and 3 of WPT are now in the market and can be obtain in DVD format. The second season DVD features several voice commentaries of various players while the third season is only offered in "Best of" layout giving only part of the best segment in each episode.