LAS VEGAS — Playing poker isn't a passion for casino executive Jeffrey Pollack, who rarely plays the game and never in public. Selling poker, on the other hand, is.

Pollack is pushing a popular product — the World Series of Poker, the No. 1 event in the game in terms of participants, prize money and history.

The seven-week marathon, which starts Monday at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino just west of the Las Vegas Strip, consists of 45 tournaments, roughly 30,000 players and more than $100 million in prize money.

With 208 poker tables spread over 45,000 square feet of convention space, think Mardi Gras on felt.

The granddaddy of the 45 tournaments is the No-Limit Texas Hold'em Main Event, which has a $10,000 buy-in and starts July 28. As many as 8,000 poker players could vie for a first-place check that could reach $10 million.

"There is so much money at stake," professional poker player Annie Duke says, "so much prestige at stake, so many players and so much excitement in one location, the World Series of Poker is as good as it gets."

Pollack, however, thinks the 37-year-old WSOP can get even bigger. Hired last year to be the vice president of sports and entertainment marketing for Harrah's, the world's largest gaming company and owner of WSOP, Pollack is dragging the event into the 21st century.

Fashioning the journey on the example he followed as a marketing executive with the NBA and NASCAR, Pollack is using technological advances, new marketing and endorsement strategies and original product placement to situate poker more into the mainstream and enhance the event's — and the sport's — appeal.

"When people think of Wimbledon, they think of the ultimate expression of tennis. When they think of the WSOP, I want them to have the same connotation," Pollack, 41, says. "Our job is to cement our No. 1 status even further and build the business in a way that it has never been built before.

"The playbook I'm using is the exact playbook used by the NBA, NASCAR, the NHL, and the NFL."

Pollack founded Sports Business Daily in 1994 before working in the NBA and NASCAR, where he led the use of advanced media and new technologies to increase fan accessibility in both sports. Pollack led the push to add in-car cameras for NASCAR coverage.

Poker goes to Madison Avenue

Pollack was named by Harrah's the first commissioner of the WSOP in January — "That means when things go wrong, everyone knows who to ask or blame," he says — and wasted little time getting started. In March, he and reps from sports marketing giant IMG traveled to England to discuss how WSOP can plant its flag in Europe.

"I think there needs to be a bit more world in the WSOP," Pollack says. "I believe we'll be in a position to import and model the WSOP in casinos around the world and establish satellite tournaments overseas."

Domestically, Pollack will make many trips to Madison Avenue.

"We are where NASCAR was about six years ago," Pollack says. "I'm not going to tell you poker will achieve the popularity of NASCAR or the NFL, but we'll chase them."

The WSOP will do so armed with existing and new allies in broadcasting, advertising and licensing:

• Harrah's and ESPN agreed to extend the sports network's coverage of the WSOP through 2010, and for the first time, ESPN will offer a live pay-per-view telecast of final-table play of the main event.

The telecast, with a suggested retail price of $24.95, will be offered in addition to ESPN's TV presentation of the WSOP; 32 hours of coverage will be telecast beginning July 18.

• Bluff Media, publisher of Bluff Magazine, will produce live radio broadcasts from the WSOP for the first time this year. The broadcasts, which can be heard exclusively on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 125, will span a minimum of 10 hours a day for 43 days beginning June 29.

• In another first, Card Player Media will offer live hand-by-hand reporting from the tournament floor, streaming videos of player interviews, event recaps, and real-time chip counts on its website, www.cardplayer.com. In addition, Card Player will be the official content provider for www.worldseriesofpoker.com and provide its content to AOL.

Further, Pollack has struck an alliance with Glu Mobile to create WSOP games, graphics and ring tones for mobile phones, increasing the WSOP's $45 million licensing business.

Other partnerships include AOL and computer console games maker Activision, whose stable of titles includes X-Men and Call to Duty.

Pollack also negotiated a three-year deal with the Miller Brewing Co. to have Milwaukee's Best Light as the presenting sponsor and the official beer of the WSOP.

Although numbers weren't released, Harrah's says the deal is the largest of its kind ever between a gaming entity and a corporate sponsor.

Pollack also signed up luxury Swiss watchmaker Corum to a six-year deal as the official timepiece of the WSOP.

"The way the bar is being raised for the World Series of Poker, we wanted to be a partner in that rise," says Stacie Orloff, president of Corum USA.

Players have a voice

Pollack has also raised the bar on player relations. Shortly after becoming commissioner, Pollack created a Players Advisory Council composed of six poker pros who meet monthly with company executives to discuss ways to enhance the WSOP experience.

"We are very unique, unlike the NBA and NFL, in that our players pay us to participate," Pollack says. "We heard loud and clear from the players — we didn't have enough bathrooms last year, there was too much smoking in the halls, the pizza was too expensive and not so good.

"No detail is too small."

Pollack knows much of the WSOP's expansion hinges on poker's popularity. Fueled by books, DVDs, games, television and the Internet, 50 million to 75 million people in the USA play poker with millions more playing overseas.

"If there's a bit of a 'poker bubble' that bursts," he says, "we'll be able to handle that because we're now managing this business with the same practices as any other major sports venture.

"And we have the resources of the world's largest gaming company backing us, so we aren't going anywhere."