Poker sales hit the jackpot

Beacon Journal | 12/18/2004 | Poker sales hit the jackpot U.S. retailers cash in on card craze by offering accessories such as clay chips, electric shufflers By Mary Ethridge, Beacon Journal business writer Life is filled with barely comprehensible things -- quantum physics, books by James Joyce and nipple rings come to mind. So, here's another -- poker on television. Observing people playing cards for hours hardly seems riveting to me. You may as well be watching a video of Grandma's bus tour to Branson. Nope, I don't get the country's new-found passion for poker, but the nation's merchants certainly do. And they're cashing in on the chips. If watching the Travel channel's World Poker Tour or Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown isn't enough for you, take a look next time you're walking through a mall or surfing gift Web sites. Kaufmann's, the mainline department store chain, offers more than a dozen poker-related items this holiday season, including an automatic card shuffler for $19.99 and a fold-up poker tabletop for $69.99. Sears, Roebuck & Co. sells a $99 poker set that includes a velvet case, 300 clay chips and two decks of cards. Restoration Hardware, a high-end home store based in San Francisco, is carrying everything from a suede card set for $19.99 to an electric card shuffler for $26.99. Thinker Toys in Montrose has poker chip and card sets that range from $24 to $180 depending on how elaborate the chips and carrying case. Borders Group Inc. has increased its poker-related inventory by 20 percent in the past year, a spokeswoman said. At the U.S. Playing Card Co. in Cincinnati, sales of poker chips have risen more than 100 percent in the past year and playing card sales are up more than 50 percent, said Scott Kling, vice president of sales and marketing. ``It's been building for a while, but we saw it really spike in the spring and it hasn't let up,'' he said. Robert ``Vegas Bob'' McArthur, owner of Vegas Game Supply on Graham Road in Cuyahoga Falls, opened holiday kiosks this year at Summit Mall in Fairlawn and Beachwood Place in suburban Cleveland. He's sold more than a quarter of a million poker chips since Nov. 1, he said. During 2003, his first holiday season in business, McArthur sold about two complete poker sets each week on average. Now, he sells at least two a day. ``Poker has become a very big thing. It just took off a couple of years ago and keeps on going,'' he said. Clay chips, which come in various weights, are the most popular of McArthur's items. Plastic chips are a poker faux pas, the equivalent of wearing black socks with sandals. Customers love fancy accessories, McArthur said. A favorite is a $25 card guard that weighs down a player's hand so it doesn't flip over. The real reason people like it is psychological -- it's a way of saying to other players, ``don't mess with me,'' McArthur said. Two age groups McArthur's customers come primarily from two groups -- people in their 50s and 60s who enjoy junkets to Vegas and teens and young adults who play it between study sessions and Internet surfing. It's the young people who most intrigue him. ``Think about it. This is the first real thing this generation does that actually involves socializing face to face,'' McArthur said. Well, besides making out, of course. John Zipp, head of the sociology department at the University of Akron, hasn't studied the poker phenomenon professionally but he has gotten a firsthand look. Recently, Zipp took his 13-year-old son to a chess tournament, and in between matches, the teens pulled out their cards and chips to play Omaha Hold 'Em. ``They knew what they were doing,'' he said. Ron Piekarski of C&P Sales on Romig Road in Akron said young people have boosted his business considerably. ``They used to play hearts and euchre sometimes in college, but now it's poker everywhere,'' he said. ``It's been a very good thing for us.'' Some concerns Not everyone is enamored of the idea of young people playing poker. A study by a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania estimates that 8 percent of all teens show signs of having a gambling problem. Some parents have heeded the warning, cutting back on casino nights at after-prom parties and other events. Officials at a growing number of schools have recently started banning poker- playing on their campuses. But Kling of the U.S. Playing Card Co. said he understands concerns but hears from most parents that they're happy their kids have taken up poker instead of other things. ``It's certainly a debate worth having,'' Kling said. ``But with poker, parents know where the kids are. They're supervised. And because there's a lot of strategy in poker, you have to be straight.'' Kling anticipates the passion for poker will continue unabated. ``It's cross generational and there's no stigma as far as men or women playing it,'' McArthur said. ``We think it's bigger than Cabbage Patch dolls.''