The John Duthie Show

It is hard to identify a single factor that has ignited the poker craze which is currently sweeping the globe. Possibly it was Channel 4’s groundbreaking Late Night Poker with the use of their revolutionary under-table cameras. Maybe it was The Million Dollar Deal, the 1999 documentary that first showed the world the happenings at the World Series of Poker.

Could it have been Chris Moneymaker winning that fabled World Series four years later? He was, after all, the big winner with the name that marketing gurus could have never dared dreamed of…and they did not fail to maximise his worth once they got their man.

One thing is for certain the very first Poker Million, broadcast to a live television audience across Europe from the Isle of Man in 2000, had a very big something to do with it. The man that hoisted the trophy aloft while clutching his £1 million cheque was television director John Duthie.

“It’s all a haze now,” says Leeds-born Duthie almost nine years on. “All I can recall was a feeling that I was fulfilling my destiny. I’d won £19,000 for finishing third in a tournament, the European Poker Classic, at my local casino the Victoria in London a few weeks earlier. It was my first big win and, in form, I decided to re-invest a third of my winnings on the Poker Million.”

It was a big gamble — £6,000 was a veritable fortune in poker circles at the time — but history shows John Duthie is a man who takes life changing decisions in his stride.

Four years on the married father of two who, by his own admission had unwisely invested some of his winnings playing the likes of Blackjack and Pai Gow and had failed to go close to matching his unforgettable day in a Douglas Casino, was ready to turn his back on his chosen career.

It had seen him work on the likes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Kavanagh QC, Hollyoaks, Silent Witness, As If, and Clocking Off but setting up the European Poker Tour was “no kind of gamble” as “the timing was perfect for it.”

For the uninitiated the European Poker Tour is a series of high buy-in televised tournaments at stunning venues spanning Europe and culminating in a €10,000 entry grand final in Monte Carlo which gets underway next weekend. For those in poker circles the EPT is the Holy Grail, the tournaments where life changing sums can be won and millionaires are made.

In his typically unassuming manor Duthie says the World Poker Tour, which had got underway two years earlier in 2002 but was essentially an all-American affair, was his inspiration, a template which he could replicate.

“Unlike the WPT we were not asking venues to stump up money for the privilege of staging the events,” he explains. “We also sought a high-profile sponsor which could provide a critical mass of online qualifiers.”

The sponsors were banging down Duthie’s door long before 229 players stumped up €1,000 apiece for the very first EPT in Barcleona in September 2004. “There were four or five high-profile poker sites more than interested but PokerStars above all others could give us the large number of players we needed and they are the ultimate tournament site.”

That marriage continues today although Duthie’s role has changed, the EPT is now the PokerStars EPT and not John Duthie’s baby sponsored by Poker Stars. Yet he retains an interest in more ways than just a shareholding.

“I don’t produce the EPT television shows. I was executive producer for the first four years but it is now done by the production company Sunset & Vine. That allows me to watch them like any other viewer but I am often critical and I can find it frustrating.”

Instead these days his role revolves around contract negotiations with venues both established and new. You can see how this fits the laid-back John Duthie, travelling far and wide, staying in five-star luxury, a kind of real life James Bond and the 007 location manager rolled into one. Little wonder he featured in Piers Morgan’s recent documentary about high-rollers in Monte Carlo.

Likewise no there is no surprise when he declares, “The _EPT_’s intention is to create the best structured events in the most unique venues which will allow players and their partners to experience the richness and diversity of European culture.”

Like a father watching his children develop into adulthood John Duthie has plenty to be proud of. The EPT has flourished. Barcelona’s most recent rendition demanded an €8,000 entry fee and attracted 619 players generating a near €5 million prize-pool. That compares favorably with the €229,000 on offer in season one.

Yet he states the poker boom, regardless of where and how it started, has by no means reached it’s peak, “I’d say that will happen in about three years time,” says Duthie who is not prepared to make any such predictions about his own future. “Five years is my normal turn-around time, the stage when I look for something new to do.”

Clearly a career change, should one be forthcoming, is unlikely to involve the table games he was once renowned for. “I last played a casino game in July 2008, I just decided to call time on working hard to earn money to simply lose it,” Duthie states with a matter-of-factness normally reserved for a rehabilitated drug user.

“Poker playing will always be part of my life though, it always has been,” says Duthie who, in a throw back to his glorious poker-playing heyday, collected $250,000 in an online heads-up tournament in April and followed up with a $386,636 payday when finishing runner-up in the $10,000 entry Heads-Up Championship event at the WSOP last week.