Opinion: As long as we’re entertaining ideas …


The main event of the World Series of Poker ended about 9 a.m. Saturday after 14 hours of play at the final table, and for the fourth consecutive year, an unknown in the poker world took home the top prize.

This year’s champion is Joseph Hachem of Australia, who topped a field of about 5,600 people to win a record $7.5 million. Hachem is a chiropractor who reportedly gave up that profession to play poker for a living.

It worked.

His success, along with that of previous semipro World Series winners Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker and Robert Varkonyi, got us thinking about how we can cash in on the poker craze in Vance County. (Hey, if the state can base its budgetary future on a lottery, why shouldn’t we gamble on something?)

We believe that the Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership ought to consider poker as the foundation of its initial drive to revive the area.

First, the partnership could finance a certificate course in poker fundamentals at Vance-Granville Community College, with graduates earning a $1,000 starting stake at the online poker room of their choice. It might not be the most respectable life to sit at home and move virtual chips against players around the world (not that we know personally), but it’s several steps above the living a lot of folks in Henderson make.

Maybe we could bring an added degree of professionalism by establishing a virtual poker room in one of the old textile mills. Just set the building up with high-speed Internet access and some $300 PCs, and put the poker players to work on a commission basis. The partnership stakes them and takes all the risk in return for half the profits. We shouldn’t have any trouble getting people to show up early and work late.

Naturally, the Economic Partnership would donate, through grants won from the charitable wings of Harrah’s and the World Poker Tour, an entire room of poker books at the H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library.

Once we get our ever-growing force of would-be poker pros in full swing, the partnership could move on to Phase 2: establishing the gambling destination to match Roanoke Rapids’ planned entertainment district. We figure people are just as likely to drive to one old textile town along the North Carolina-Virginia border to play cards as they are to hear country music.

Surely the lawyers and land developers involved in the partnership could figure out a legal way to transfer title to a nice chunk of Vance County land to some American Indian tribe eager to expand its gaming operations. It would be a fitting historical circle, for instance, if we could reach an economic deal with the descendants of the Cherokees whom Richard Henderson paid in the 18th century to open Kentucky to settlement.

If nothing else, we know of a nice plot downtown that’s destined to be developed in the public interest. How about the Embassy Square Theater and Poker Palace? (We’re just kidding. Maybe.)