College Poker Championships are gaining the interest of an increasing number of college students, as evidenced by the 25,000 students across the United States that participated in the College Poker Championship competition. That number exceeds the number of participants in last year’s competition by 10,000.

The winner of the competition will receive a $41,000 scholarship, and a $52,000 pool will be divided among the next nine finalists of the competition. The game played at the championships, Texas Hold Em, requires no entry fee and students are assigned a pre-determined, imaginary amount of money to play with in each round. The company that hosts the championship posts the semifinal and final results on its Web site, www.collegepokerchampionship.com.

Organizers of the event are already in the planning stages for next year’s competition. Next year there will be a slight change in the final competition, however, as organizers intend to have finalists play each other face-to-face. The face-to-face competitions will also most likely be televised.

Of course, not everyone is so enthusiastic about the ease with which college students can play at online gambling sites. The number of students playing in the poker championships alone is estimated at 4,500 and many people fear that competitions such as these encourage gambling and could breed future gambling addictions. Kerry Johnson, a spokeswoman for College Poker Championships, counters this concern by insisting that the competition does not encourage gambling. “We’re showing how poker can be a strategic learning tool. There are lots of examples of how it’s already used in the classroom”, commented Kerry. Furthermore, sponsors of the competition point out that actual money is not involved since the winners receive scholarships, not cash payouts.