Back when the Poker Million first made it to the television screen, poker was riding a pre-Moneymaker wave of cult popularity in Britain. Late Night Poker had just come out and was gaining a niche audience who lived for the midnight hour once a week to see their favourite characters take to the felt.

In 2000, the Poker Million was invented to offer one player the chance of winning a million pound top prize. This wouldn’t be the only prize, but the pay-jumps were brutal. In the original series of the Poker Million, 10th-placed Dave Welch cashed for £2,000. The big names at the time went up the top 10, but the amounts were paltry compared to that top prize. Simon Trumper (9th for £6,000), Barny Boatman (6th or £14,000) and Tony Bloom (4th for £25,000) all missed out on the first seven-figure tournament prize in British poker. Heads-up, John Duthie, creator of the European Poker Tour, would beat Teddy ‘Sugar’ Tuil to give the Israeli player a £100,000 consolation prize. It was the final hand that the TV company must have dreamed of when they conceived the show in the first place.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic_lswkSAh8?feature=oembed]

The Poker Million might have been a success, but the format would not return to TV screens until three years later in 2003, the year Moneymaker won the biggest prize in poker. This time, the prize-pool was reduced by a vast amount, and it was snooker legend Jimmy White who won the first prize, a comparatively miniscule $150,000.