It’s been said that nothing is harder to stop than an idea whose time has come. In 2004, a new sport wanted to be recognised in the games. Once on the perimeter of decency, poker now wanted to compete on sport’s greatest stage. Full Tilt Poker led the charge to make every poker player’s dream become a reality. After all, if synchronised swimming is enough of a sport to make it in the games, surely the great game of poker deserved the same status. Full Tilt Poker vowed not to rest until poker was part of the games.

Full Tilt Poker took their message of putting poker in the games to the streets, holding protests in LA, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Now the word was out. Next came the Poker in Athens website. The site explained Full Tilt’s cause and had an open letter to the games sanctioning committee, an online petition and humorous articles. Along with the website, Full Tilt Poker launched print, radio and TV commercials which asked the question, if curling, synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics were good enough for the games, why not poker?