“Deal” filming this month in New Orleans will soon present World Poker Tour (R) first Hollywood close-up, where we’ll see such hosts as Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten and Courtney Friel playing themselves and Hollywood stars like Burt Reynolds and Bret Harrison. The cast of the film also includes a veteran actor Charles Durning, poker aficionado Shannon Elizabeth and WPT stars Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari.

The film produced by Michael Arata and Louisiana-based Crescent City Pictures and directed by Gil Gates Jr. tells the story of an ex-gambler (Reynolds starring) who teaches a hot-shot college student (Harrison starring) “to play the player”. The final in the film take place at the World Poker Tournament.

The WPT scenes will be filmed after April 18 -24, 2006 WPT World Championship (TM), the $12-15 million final to the 17-event World Poker Tour Season IV. The new WPT World Champion is to be crowned at Bellagio in Las Vegas and to be awarded a $3+ million prize, the set will be sent to New Orleans.

“Deal” is believed to bring much more popularity to the already popular show on the Travel Channel, and it will for sure contribute to the explosion of poker in the world scale.

The WPT being the world’s poker leader and an implementer of the gold standard in poker has introduced poker to the whole world using innovative strategies like televised poker that is seen in more than 147 countries. The WPT somehow inspires the players, and as a result of it a lot of men and women join the poker playing community. The WPT has transformed poker into the sport for a huge number of players and viewers, to say nothing of the hundreds of millions dollars of prize money believed to be able to realize the famous American Dream.

If you do admire poker, either playing or watching, there is one more possibility for you: the WPT airs on the Travel Channel every Wednesday night at 9pm ET/ PT in the USA and on ITV4 in the UK.