With boaters always game for exciting new ways to entertain themselves and their friends, the waterways were flush with poker runs this summer. Clubs all over the U.S. are hosting these on-the-water scavenger hunts to the point that there are over 100 major events, plus dozens of smaller ones, for vessels of all kinds.

For those unattuned to the latest boating trends, a poker run is simply a floating card game where boaters depart from a starting point to five stops, around a lake or perhaps miles away up a river or bay, where they pick up one playing card at each stop. When they reach the end of the stops or return to the start, the boat with the best poker hand wins. At one event a $250,000 powerboat was the prize for anyone drawing five of a kind.

While poker runs may have originated about 15 years ago as high speed rallies for "gear-head" powerboats, all types of boats from dinghies to canoes have been brought into the fold. Poker runs have evolved from "hot rod" drag races to tightly controlled family-friendly outings.

Advocates of properly run events say emphatically a poker run is not a race. Speed actually plays no role in winning -- the best hand wins every time. And as any visitor to Las Vegas knows, winning at gambling is largely chance.

"The whole attraction is the get-together," said Larry Boyd, event administrator for the American Poker Runs Association (APRA), based in Highland Park, MI. "It's a recreational, family event and the attraction is you're playing a hand of poker. Everyone has an equal shot at winning some significant prizes."

Now attracting corporate sponsors, poker runs are featuring some major prizes as part of the big draw -- including boats, cash up to $15,000, cameras, designer watches, and a variety of boating gear.

You certainly don't need to be an ace to participate as the larger poker runs are highly organized. Some are short courses and others can go for 200 miles; there are poker runs for the macho Cigarette boat owners--a sort of amateur waterborne NASCAR--and poker runs for small cruisers, pontoon boats and even personal watercraft; many are held as fundraisers for local charities. This month alone there are major poker runs in San Diego, CA, Dallas, TX, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Glen Cove, NY, and on the Potomac River near Washington, DC.