In addition to poker tournaments there are hundreds of regularly scheduled home games where players both pay to play and also bet money, says Robert S., who 18 months ago started a Web site called UtahPlayers.com. That doesn't count all the more casual "nickel-and-dime" poker games in family rooms across the valley.

Robert, who considers poker more about mathematics than luck, prefers not to have his last name printed in the newspaper because "I host a game, and frankly, it's illegal, no ifs, ands or buts." At his games, players sometimes win $100 a night, he says, but there are also games in the Salt Lake valley where a night's winnings can reach $30,000, says Diamond Poker Tour's Colledge.

The new popularity of poker worries people like Keith Whyte, executive director of the nonprofit National Council on Problem Gambling. "We know that most gambling is not harmful, just like most people can drink without harm." But he worries that the TV poker shows glamorize gambling and fail to acknowledge its pitfalls. The games should come with the equivalent of a warning label, he says. The Council has put together a 30-second public service announcement and offered it to the channels that feature poker, but none has aired it.

Whyte and others worry that poker shows on TV will create a new generation of addicted gamblers. "We believe that poker is particularly attractive to youth," he says. "And the earlier you start gambling the more likely you are to have a gambling problem."

An anonymous member of the Salt Lake City chapter of Gamblers Anonymous says some of the group's newer members started their gambling addictions after watching poker on TV. "It's mostly younger people, who started envisioning themselves as world class poker players, then they got into Internet poker . . . and now their relationships are suffering because of the amount of money they gambled and then lost," he says.

Home poker parties may start innocently enough, says Ken Godfrey, co-owner of Casino Games and Bingo Supplies. "They start with penny ante. Then the conflict grows. It's a man thing," he says. "We've seen that happen repeatedly. The greed factor comes in, then feelings get hurt. It starts out as penny, nickel, dime, and then the game grows into dollars and pretty soon money that should have been spent doing something else for the family gets used up by dad at his friendly neighborhood poker night."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com