Interactive gaming is sure to be a popular topic at the show, with an entire pavilion devoted to it, as well as one of the show's first sessions. While one of the last places you might think to sit down and play a game of Texas Hold’em would be your living room in front of the good ole’ TV, if the folks at several companies perched at the forefront of interactive gaming have their way, cable operators will capitalize on a promising new revenue source.

Interactive TV is a genre that encompasses everything from thoroughbred arcade gaming to merely adding an interactive element to popular TV shows. One such enhancement, created by students at Georgia Tech, enabled viewers to participate in episodes of ABC’s "The Mole," voting and betting on the events of the show. Points would be accumulated by placing correct bets—such as choosing the winning team of a particular challenge—and viewers with the most points at the end of a show would be displayed on a leaderboard.

Deployment of interactive TV has been slow in the U.S., but overseas viewers have been quick to adopt. Israel especially has seen growth in triple-play gaming, with cross-platform games that can be played over broadband, TV, and cell phone. Players can start a game on TV and continue it later on their cell phone, all while playing against another subscriber over broadband.

A Texas Hold’em game carried by Blue Ridge Communications created in a partnership with Buzztime Entertainment, Inc., showed that 5.2% of all households on the network played over eight hours of the game in one month. The average amount of time spent playing the games per household was 45 minutes per month, a statistic that rivals the most popular of VOD titles.