Celebrity Poker Tour Founder Blake Wynn: "Poker is a Canvas for Entertainment"
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The Celebrity Poker Tour (CPT) arrived in the Bahamas this week, taking over the feature stages at the WSOP Paradise for a 27-player shootout.
Walking away the winner was former UFC Champion Aljamain Sterling, taking home $10,000 and a seat in the $25,000 WSOP Super Main Event
PokerNews sat down with CPT founder Blake Wynn to talk about the tour's growth, its trajectory and how his vision for poker has influenced everything to do with the Tour.
The Celebrity Poker Tour Finally Tours
"It's unbelievable," Wynn told PokerNews when asked what it was like to have the CPT present at WSOP Paradise. "There are two things I did as a young kid: watch the World Series of Poker, and come to Atlantis on vacation. And so to be 25, and to be here at the Atlantis again, having a good time, is a really, really exciting thing."
Wynn isn't the only person jumping on a plane to the Bahamas to enjoy what Paradise Island has to offer, he also managed to convince over two dozen celebrities to join him for the Celebrity Poker Tour's first event outside of Vegas.
"These celebrities, they go around the world, and everybody tries to woo them, right? Whether it's hotels, flights, tickets — whoever they are, whatever it is. But when they walked into that ballroom today, they could not believe what they were laying eyes on."
Even Wynn admits, it's nice to finally include the word Tour in the Celebrity Poker Tour, and mean it.
"That was definitely a knock that we faced in our first 15 events. This is event number 16, and before this we hadn't left the PokerGo Studio. So yes, it's really nice to put the word tour in the Celebrity Poker Tour - officially. But there are so many people that make this kind of thing happen that to the outside is just a 27-person tournament.
"But without the World Series of Poker, our staff, our celebrities — if you understood what went into it, I think you'd be amazed at how much heavy lifting was required."
The feature table has been completely transformed from the Triton Poker Series lights to the Celebrity Poker Tour branding, all especially for this three-table sit-and-go.
"Whoever you are, even celebrities, you probably first started playing poker in your house," says Wynn. "And now you're on this gorgeous 8,000 or 9,000 square foot stage with more cameras than you can even count? I'm just so proud of our team, so proud of these celebrities, for taking the risk to come out here to play a little poker."
Personalities and Conflict
The field included start from the UFC, NFL, NBA, with the diversity of its start the coolest part about the CPT, according to Wynn. He calls the collection of participants in the Celebrity Poker Tour "eclectic" and says they each bring their own different brand, audience and identity.
"Not only because they all have these huge personalities, but the nature of poker is conflict. So now you're pitting these personalities against each other. It would be one thing to have two rappers or two UFC fighters sitting together. But it's another thing entirely to see a UFC fighter next to the rapper, next to an NBA Hall of Famer, next to a reality TV star.
"So you're bringing this very eclectic group of people together, that you're never going to see anywhere else in the world. And thanks to the cards, there's conflict. It makes it a very entertaining thing to watch."
While poker may be a niche, it has a lot more to offer than meets the eye, says Wynn.
"It's got all the dynamics that the NFL has. It has all the dynamics that politics has. It has everything that can grab national or really international attention: interesting personalities, conflict, and consistency with regard to how often stuff is actually happening. And so if you can create an organisation, what we're trying to do with Celebrity Poker Tour that checks those three boxes, you have a chance to put poker in a different light than it's currently been shown in."
Working to Close the Gender Gap
One element that Wynn is keen to emphasize about the success of the Celebrity Poker Tour, is its impact on the female poker audience. The Celebrity Poker Tour's audience is almost 50% female, something that Wynn says poker has never seen before.
"I've never understood what makes poker so masculine. The argument is that it's gambling, and by nature, men like to gamble more than women. Then you have to convince me that there's no skill involved. And if there was no skill involved, then you'd have no Phil Hellmuths.
"Obviously, skill is a huge part of the game, and I think our ladies have found that out. Look at our first nine events — we had six female winners. Not only is our target market younger than what poker has been targeting in recent years, but we're adding women.
The Future of the Celebrity Poker Tour
As much fun as the PokerGO Studio at the ARIA has been, Wynn says he is looking to continue the Tour element into 2026.
"It's a fun home base, but we're just looking to continue to do more things. We're gonna go from having eight events a year having ten events a year. Our first event was last February, so by the end of next year, we'll be 26 down in less than three years."
And as for participants, as the tour grows, so does its appeal with celebrities wanting to play under the bright lights of the CPT.
"All the time people are messaging us, "Why don't you have this celebrity? That celebrity?" says Wynn. "And now people know what the Celebrity Poker Tour actually is. Yes, it had a catch name at the start. But when we were two events in, people were always questioning who was actually on it.
"Well, with 16 under our belt, we've got the great Michael Phelps, Taylor Fritz...hopefully soon to be, guys like Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu and others in the poker world. Funnily enough, the one thing that the Celebrity Poker Tour has not tapped into is the poker world. So I think it'd be fun to figure out how to get them involved."
Expect the Unexpected
Whether or not the Poker Hall of Famers will be tucking into hot dogs served by World Champion sumo wrestlers, as happened at the last CPT event, remains to be seen.
"Never mind things that you wouldn't expect to see at a poker game, but things you wouldn't expect to see anywhere," says Wynn."I just think that that style of content stands alone, as something that has real standing power."
Wynn says the Celebrity Poker Tour's content is appealing to a completely new audience, one that is tired and jaded of traditional poker content.
"When we started the Tour, I remember saying to my business partner: 'Is the blueprint for growing poker shows just raising the stakes? One day, are we just gonna be playing for a billion dollars?'
"Are all these poker streams as good as the game gets, truthfully, in terms of entertainment? Are we calling this the peak? What about if Joey Chesnut and Mackenzie Dern race eating hot dogs while they're playing? I just think that that's more engaging when you talk about scale. Not of poker, but of just entertainment. Poker is not the end-all, be-all. It is not what people are there to see. Poker is a canvas for entertainment for us."
