The roots of the current poker craze making the rounds on television lie at the feet of a man with the fitting name of Moneymaker.

The 2003 ride of Tennessee accountant Chris Moneymaker from a $40 Internet poker tournament to winning $2.5 million in the televised World Series of Poker sparked a nationwide fad that shows no signs of cashing in its chips. Casinos, many of which had been doing away with poker rooms, are now looking for ways to take advantage of the televised tournament craze.

The growth of the poker business over the past year has been incredible, said Harrah's New Orleans general manager John Payne. It's a pretty exciting time to be playing poker.

Special tables outfitted with cameras allowing viewers to see players' cards, as well as play-by-play announcers calling the action, have only fueled poker's popularity.

Boomtown Casino in Harvey reopened its poker room last year after having closed it several years ago, a move casino officials attribute directly to the televised tournament craze. Boomtown now holds weekly tournaments, attracting mainly local players.

There have been a lot of new people coming in to play, especially women, said Joseph Giantonio, gaming director at Boomtown. It's an added venue. People bring their wives or husbands in, and one plays poker while the other plays the slot machines.

In 2003, Bristol, Conn.-based ESPN's broadcasts of the World Series of Poker scored an overall 1.2 rating, with an average of more than 1 million viewing households, according to ESPN Original Entertainment, the division producing the broadcasts. In July, broadcasts of the 2004 World Series of Poker preliminaries garnered a 2.0 rating, with nearly 2 million households tuning in to watch the play.

In comparison, that's close to the rating achieved by the popular syndicated show Law and Order: SVU, which achieved a 2.3 rating and 2.4 million viewing households in August, according to ratings company Nielsen Media Research.

Harrah's poker business is up between 40 and 50 percent over the past year, Payne said. The casino is expanding its poker room from 12 to 20 tables and plans to increase the number of promotions tied to the poker room, he said.

We're going to start with 20 tables and see where it goes, Payne said. If it looks like we'll need more we'll see where we can expand, but 20 tables is as large as any poker room in the South.