Jan Edward Helfeld moves along the bar at the Hawk and Dove, a popular after-work watering hole on Washington's Capitol Hill, scanning his quarry.

He stops several people to ask: "Are you here for the poker meeting?"

Like others who have turned out, Helfeld is hungry to meet people who host or play in regular games he might join. He exchanges business cards with Jason Kim, who hosts a regular game for friends. They discuss stakes they like to wager and types of poker they like to play.

Poker is on fire, its popularity fanned by a combination of television, technology and, for some, the allure of big money.

The game Mark Twain once complained was "unpardonably neglected"in the United States is now played by hundreds of thousands of people online 24 hours a day and by celebrities on television.

Industry estimates are that 50 million to 80 million Americans play the game. Card rooms in states where poker is legal are booming, while online directories list games and tournaments set up in garages and basements around the country. The game is consuming college campuses and has replaced video gaming as the idle-time obsession of many high school boys.

"It's just amazing," said Nancy Robinson of Arlington, Va., whose 16-year-old son, Nick, has been playing nearly every night this summer with 10 to 20 friends who bet about $10. "I've seen a lot less computer games"among her son's circle of friends. "I certainly favor poker; it probably improves the mind more, and it's much more social."

Players at all levels say the game appeals to their competitive instincts, challenges their brains and differs from other sports because it does not rely on athletic prowess or the ability to buy the best equipment.

"Other games dictate to you,"said Kevin Wills, who like Helfeld is at the meet-up hunting for a regular game. "With poker, you can control the game, by either bluffing, being overly aggressive or passive."

Some big Hollywood names are smitten, and not all are playing for charity on the Bravo cable channel's Celebrity Poker Showdown. Ben Affleck won $360,000 in a recent tournament in Sacramento. Mimi Rogers plays often, as do Lou Diamond Phillips and James Woods.

"Poker is like a modern Greek tragedy," said Steve Lipscomb, chief executive of World Poker Tour Enterprises Inc., who pioneered the way poker is watched in the United States. "It reveals the human condition as well or better than anything else you'll find. You get the greatest highs and the lowest lows. That's the juice."

But it is the growth of poker as a business that is breathtaking to people in the gaming industry.

Cable TV viewer ratings for the "World Poker Tour" on the Travel Channel and the World Series of Poker on ESPN have been so strong that four poker-related shows are in development.

The success of television and online poker has translated into a surge of entrants in tournaments. First prize in this year's World Series of Poker, which took place in May and is now airing on television, doubled to $5 million from $2.5 million last year because of the increase in participants. The top tournament prize of World Poker Tour jumped to $2.7 million from $1 million.

Poker had long been a late-night cable TV offering, but it drew few viewers until three years ago when Lipscomb produced a documentary on poker.

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