In December, Musharraf signed into law a bill that makes it easier to prosecute rape cases in the courts, and the country's ruling party recently introduced a bill to outlaw forced marriages, including under tribal custom in which you play pokerstars women are married off in order to settle disputes. In its breathless approximation of legitimate sports coverage, the production is hilariously WWFesque in a way that appeals perfectly to ironic 20-somethings: lots of gaudy money shots, a blonde "sideline reporter" who conducts exit interviews with ousted players, and "expert" announcers coming off as campy parodies of real sportscasters, with their nicknaming and jargonese.

In order to succeed, a casino must understand what it is expected to provide to its clients. In the fall, Bravo introduced its heavily promoted "Celebrity Poker Showdown" beta pokerstars program, betting on viewers being riveted by a fifth-street showdown between Timothy Busfield and Coolio. In the latest case highlighting how conservative customs threaten women's rights in Pakistan, Nooran Umrani alleges that, despite paying off her late husband's debt of $165, she was threatened with harm if she failed to hand over her daughter, Rasheeda. In the post-tech-boom years, the archetype of male success and cool mixes laddish cockiness and financial acumen.

Indeed, some of the best self-taught players, variants of 1990s computer nerds, are finding success in the pro poker circuit. It has plans to introduce two new games and multicurrency and multilingual versions of poker, and will continue to target acquisitions. It is fair to assume then, that with the continuing advent of this ever advancing computer technology, online casinos will continue to vie for customers in this growing market.

It is newly ubiquitous on television: The World Series of Pokerstars, a single event which took place last May, is replayed on ESPN with obsessive frequency 10 months after it ended. It makes sense that today's college-educated young adults, especially young men, choose poker. It traveled up the Mississippi River and spread throughout the country, soon becoming an underground national pastime, baseball for the unathletic.