John Duthie: unafraid of life-changing decisions
Picture:Press AssociationEPT supremo Duthie: 'I was fulfilling my destiny'
John Duthie is no stranger to taking a gamble, having won the first Poker Million, but he tells Roy Brindley how his willingness to take risks led to the hugely successful European Poker Tour.
IT IShard to identify a single factor that ignited the poker craze sweeping the globe. Perhaps it was Channel 4's groundbreaking Late Night Poker with its under-table cameras.
Maybe it was The Million Dollar Deal, the 1999 documentary that opened the public's eyes to the World Series of Poker. Or it could have been the amateur Chris Moneymaker winning the World Series four years later. He had the name marketing gurus could not have even dreamed of - and they did not fail to maximise his worth once they got their man.
But the first Poker Million, broadcast to a live television audience from the Isle of Man in 2000, certainly had something to do with it - and it was television director John Duthie who collected the £1 million cheque.
"It's all a haze now," says Leeds-born Duthie. "All I can recall was a feeling that I was fulfilling my destiny.
"I'd won £19,000 for finishing third in a tournament, the European Poker Classic, at my local casino [the Victoria in London] a few weeks earlier. It was my first big win and I decided to re-invest a third of my winnings on the Poker Million."
It was a big gamble - £6,000 was a fortune in poker circles at the time - but history shows he is not afraid to make life-changing decisions. Four years after winning the Poker Million, Duthie, who admits to unwisely spending some of his winnings on Blackjack and Pai Gow, was ready to turn his back on television. For the married father of two, who had worked on the likes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Kavanagh QC, Hollyoaks and Silent Witness, was preparing to set up a European Poker Tour.
The EPT is a series of high buy-in televised tournaments at stunning venues across Europe, culminating in a €10,000 entry grand final, which begins next weekend. The EPT is the holy grail for poker players, a tournament where millionaires are made. Duthie had been inspired by the World Poker Tour - which had begun two years earlier but which was essentially an all-American affair - and believed it was a template he could replicate.
"Unlike the WPT, wewere not asking venues to stump up money for the privilege of staging the events," he says. "We also sought a high-profile sponsor who could provide a critical mass of online qualifiers."
There was plenty of interestlong before 229 paid €1,000 apiece for the first EPT in Barcelona in September 2004.
"There were four or five high-profile poker sites who were interested," he says. "But PokerStars were able to give us the number of players we needed, and they are the ultimate tournament site."
That marriage continues today, although Duthie's role has changed.
"I don't produce the EPT television shows," he says. "I was executive producer for the first four years, but it's now done by the production company Sunset & Vine. That allows me to watch them like any other viewer, but I'm often critical and I can find it frustrating."
He now negotiates contracts - both old and new - with the venues. Staying in five-star luxury, a kind of real-life James Bond and 007 location manager rolled into one, it's easy to see how this suits the laid-back Duthie,who featured in Piers Morgan's recent documentary about high-rollers in Monte Carlo.
He has plenty to be proud of as the EPT has flourished. Barcelona's most recent tournament attracted 619 players who payed €8,000 to enter, generating a prize pool of nearly €5m. Not bad when compared with the €229,000 on offer five years ago.
Duthie believes the poker boom has yet to reach its peak. "I'd say that will happen in aboutthree years," he says.
However, he is not prepared to make any such predictions about his own future. "Five years is my normal turnaround time," he adds.
"The stage when I look for something new."
Any career change is highly unlikely to mean a return to the tables. "I last played a casino game in July 2008," he says. "I decided to call time on working hard to earn money - just to lose it again."
"Poker playing will always be part of my life though, it always has been," says Duthie who, in a throwback to his heyday, collected $250,000, the second biggest win of his career, in an online heads-up tournament just a week ago.
