In the year 2000, poker was all but dead.
Sure, you could find a game at The Mirage in Las Vegas, or at any number of small above-board and underground card rooms around the United States, but in a place like Atlantic City, despite a slight uptick in interest in the game after the 1998 film Rounders made the Trump Taj Mahal the home of poker on the East Coast, the number of poker tables in rooms on the aging Boardwalk was steadily declining.
In fact, Atlantic City gaming revenues were on a downswing across the board.