Drug Store News: Betting the house on poker

Retailers are gambling on poker-inspired products to be the 'it' gift this holiday season. Next month, Walgreens is launching a full endcap of World Poker Tour-licensed products. Other retailers are running clip-strip promotions in snack and beverage aisles. CVS is featuring WPT-licensed products inline--a smart move being as WPT products led the toys/games/playing card category to a 30 percent rise over the year-ago period, according to point-of-sales data provided by the U.S. Playing Card Co., an exclusive licensee of WPT-branded cards, chips and poker sets.

The love affair with poker is expected to continue at least through mid2006. Currently, 100 million people in the United States play, and 5 million tune in weekly to "The World Poker Tour" on the Travel Channel, which elevated poker to a spectator sport and where viewership has doubled since the show first aired in March 2003, according to a show spokesman.

If Bravo's "Celebrity Poker" added star power to the game, ESPN's "The Worm Series of Poker" helped grow popularity. Nielsen Media Research found that ESPN's poker viewers largely are men (76.5 percent) and have a median income of $62,115 and a median age of 43.4 years. While retailers already are looking at Father's Day tie-ins, the U.S. Playing Card Co., predicts single-deck cards will be a hot stocking stuffer at $3.49. "The 2003 World Series of Poker" two-disc DVD for $34.95 also could be a holiday hit.