ABC’s Nightline Profiles Online Poker Players Tonight

ABC News takes a look at two online poker players on tonight’s Nightline.

The late night news program Nightline has been a mainstay of the ABC television network since 1980 – long before the online poker players who will be featured on the program tonight were born. The August 24, 2010 episode takes a look at 22-year-old Joe Cada, who got his start playing online poker as a teenager before becoming known worldwide as the 2009 WSOP Main Event champion. Also featured is Blaine Brount, a 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois who pays his bills by playing online poker.

As for how Nightline will approach the topic of online poker, it’s hard to say with precision. The show once had a reputation for being more grounded and less sensationalistic than other television news programs back when Ted Koppel was its host, though it has begun to slip a bit since the long-time anchor retired in 2005 and the show’s format changed to cover multiple stories each night. But the online preview of tonight’s episode at the ABC website seems to be poker-friendly, focusing on two young players who learned to manage their bankrolls responsibly and have enjoyed success as a result.

The Nightline feature on online poker will air tonight at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.