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A new history of poker spectatorship: table chat, online forums, television piracy, and Twitch

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  • Mark R. Johnson
  • Brett Abarbanel
  • Benjamin Burroughs

Abstract

Histories of poker spectating typically focus on formal and institutional aspects such as television production, professional hosting, and commercial sponsorships. In this paper, however, we describe an ongoing and potentially profound transformation in poker content creation and consumption – live streaming of real-money poker play, often by noted professional celebrity players, on Twitch – and contextualize this development within a new reading of poker broadcasting’s history, which includes the uploading and distribution of poker broadcasts on online video sharing websites, their circulation and discussion on poker forums, and conversations and spectatorship taking place within online poker sites themselves. We then show that the dynamics of these more ‘hidden’ dimensions of poker video distribution and viewership are clear antecedents to what we see now on Twitch, where hundreds of poker broadcasters stream their real-money play live to combined audiences that can reach into the hundreds of thousands. In doing so, we point toward multiple new areas of study for understanding poker players and poker culture and offer a deeper sense of the online poker ecosystem than has generally been previously presented in scholarship.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark R. Johnson & Brett Abarbanel & Benjamin Burroughs, 2025. "A new history of poker spectatorship: table chat, online forums, television piracy, and Twitch," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 513-531, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:intgms:v:25:y:2025:i:3:p:513-531
    DOI: 10.1080/14459795.2025.2548935
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