Poker on CNBC

So I dropped into the Oaks Club this afternoon, and got a seat in the must-move $15-$30 hold'em game. Sweet game; I booked a tidy win — but that's not what I'm writing about.

One of the TV monitors in the cardroom was tuned to CNBC, with the financial reporting, the stock ticker crawl across the bottom of the screen, the whole nine yards.*

I looked up from the game to the monitor at one point, and noticed that it was showing another poker game, in a public cardroom. Had the channel been changed to ESPN2, with its coverage of the World Series of Poker? No; it was still CNBC, with the stock ticker crawl across the bottom. And the chips the players were using looked familiar ... they were the $1 chips at Bay 101, in San Jose. The words "Prop Player" showed on the screen briefly.

Why in heaven's name would CNBC spend airtime on a $3-$6 hold'em game at Bay 101?

I glanced up every now and then. Some of the time the screen showed the play of the game, and sometimes it showed two people talking in a lounge setting: a dark-haired younger woman whose ethnicity didn't register with me, and a slender white man, looking fiftyish in age.

The segment finished with the woman at a desk in the CNBC studio. A logo above the ticker crawl showed the words "You get PAID to do THAT?" I infer that it's a regular feature about peculiar jobs, and that the peculiar job in question was prop player at Bay 101.

I didn't recognize the guy. Anyone know him?

(*) Once upon a time I took offense at the idea that investing in the stock market was a form of gambling. Then I took up cardroom poker, and discovered quite how many gamblers cared about the financial markets in the same way they cared about sports. On a weekday in an American poker room, you'll always find a TV monitor showing CNBC

I rather think that the Las Vegas casino-resorts that make branded partnerships (such as California Pizza Kitchen at the Mirage, or Krispy Kreme doughnuts at the Excalibur) are missing a bet: there should be a branch offics of a brokerage in the casino — Schwab, say, or eTrade — right next to the poker room and the sports book.

Addendum: Patrick Milligan informs me that the segment featured Michelle Caruso-Cabrera interviewing Chuck Thompson. It was first broadcast on CNBC's Power Lunch yesterday and evidently rebroadcast after markets closed.