High Stakes Poker Renewed for Fourth Season

With only one more new episode left to air next Monday for Season 3 of High Stakes Poker the GSN has announed that HSP will return for a fourth season. Filming is set to begin in May at the Southpoint Hotel, Casino, and Spa in Las Vegas. This is very good news. We will get to see more episodes of the best poker show on TV. It seemed highly likely that HSP was going to return but we can't take anything for granted. With the surge in popularity of poker over the past few years we have seen a plenthora of new poker shows. Some of much better quality than others. With the passage of the UIGEA last fall alot of these programs are going to have trouble sticking around. As online poker sites exit the U.S. market they take take with them a lot of advertising dollars. Some sites remaining in the U.S. have even pulled their advertising or greatly reduced it. Bodog which remains open to U.S. players has pulled all of their print and media advertising from U.S. outlets to focus on developing their brand for the international market. The exit of this advertising money will likely result in some of the lower quality poker programming either being cancelled or not renewed. The Travel Channel and the WPT are in talks right now that will determine if they continue to air new episodes of the WPT after their current contract expires in 2008. With the current climate in the U.S. who knows what we can expect by 2009. That is something the Travel Channel is probably very concerned with. Hopefully we will continue to see new episodes of High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, and the World Poker Tour for a long time to come.