– General Introduction –
Kara Scott is a Canadian-British poker presenter and poker player. She was born on August 11th, 1977 in Alberta, Canada.
Scott is best known for co-hosting the classic poker show High Stakes Poker on The Game Show Network between 2010 and 2011. She’s also been the host to such programs as ESPN’s coverage of the WSOP Main Event, or the UK shows Poker Night Live and Sky Poker.
She’s also a prolific live tournament player with over $660,000 in career earnings, which includes two cashes in the WSOP Main Event in two consecutive years.
In addition, she’s been a sponsored pro for two major poker sites: formerly for partypoker; currently, since 2016, for 888Poker.
– Key Career Dates –
- 2005: She hosts the TV coverage of that year’s World Backgammon Championships for Game TV in Canada and Pokerzone in the UK.
- 2009: She finishes 2nd in the €3,500 Main Event at the PaddyPower Irish Poker Open 2009 in Dublin for €312,600. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of her career to date.
- 2010: She gets hired as the co-host for the classic poker show High Stakes Poker on The Game Show Network, alongside Gabe Kaplan.
- 2016: She signs with 888Poker to become a brand ambassador.
– Kara Scott’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
Scott was born and raised in the Northern part of Alberta, one of Canada’s largest provinces.
She was hired in 2005 to host the coverage of that year’s World Backgammon Championships for Game TV in Canada and Pokerzone in the UK. The producers of the British TV show Poker Night Live, and of the just-launched show Sky Poker were so impressed by her job with backgammon that they offered her new gigs, this time covering poker.
The “Who I Am” page on her official website writes:
“I’ve built a life in four different countries so far and am already planning the fifth. My career takes me all over the world to either play poker, write about poker or talk about poker on TV. The game found me way back in 2006 after a tiny cable poker show in England (country number two) saw work I’d done on the World Series of Backgammon and offered me a job.
(…)
I paid my dues and learned about both poker and television in equal measure in those early days and soon moved from Poker Night Live to the newly launched Sky Poker.”
With more and more opportunities to work on poker TV productions, Scott decided she’d start studying the game itself as well. She started cashing in live tournaments in 2007 in England.
→ Live Tournaments ←
Scott has $664,795 in live tournament cashes, according to her Hendon page. That sum is the product of ITM finishes in 25 different live events over the course of 12 years.
The first recorded cash on her profile is from August 2007. She came in 6th in the $3,000 buy-in Final – No Limit Hold’em event at the Partypoker.com Women’s World Open in Maidstone, UK for $5,000. Half a year later, in February 2008, she took down the £850 buy-in No Limit Hold’em – Final event at the Partypoker Sports Stars Challenge III, in the same town, Maidstone. She got £26,000 for that victory.
The first time Scott made a live cash for over $100K was in April 2009. She finished 2nd in the €3,200 Main Event at the PaddyPower Irish Poker Open in Dublin for €312,600 (which equaled around $413,600 at the time). That is also her biggest single live tournament score to date. She lost the heads-up battle for the title to Christer Johansson from Sweden in this tournament.
In October 2013, Scott came in 14th in the €7,500 Main Event at the Bwin WPT Grand Prix de Paris for €19,685. In March 2016, she finished 3rd in the £220 Main Event at the 888poker LIVE – 888 London Local for £10,250.
→ World Series of Poker ←
Kara Scott is yet to win her first WSOP gold bracelet.
However, she did cash in 7 World Series events for a total of $107,807 combined. Out of those 7 ITM finishes, two were from the famous Main Event, from back-to-back years.
In 2008, she took 104th place out of a field of 6,844 players and won $41,816; in 2009, she eventually busted in 238th place out of 6,494 runners for $32,963.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Scott hasn’t appeared on any TV shows or live streams where she played live cash in front of an audience.
→ Online Poker ←
Scott plays under the screen name “KaraOTR” online, on partypoker and on 888Poker. This is also her Twitter handle.
However, her results aren’t tracked on either of those sites, be it cash games or tournaments. So, alas, we cannot report on any of her online results.
→ As a Poker Presenter ←
As we wrote earlier, Scott’s first TV gig was hosting the coverage of that year’s World Backgammon Championships. This led to her being offered presenter jobs for British poker shows, such as Late Night Poker and Sky Poker.
Her first big American show was High Stakes Poker, which featured the biggest names in poker playing super high stakes cash games, and aired on The Game Show Network. Scott took over the role of A. J. Benza as the co-host of the classic show, alongside Gabe Kaplan. She first appeared in Season 6, airing between February and May of 2010. She appeared on another legendary poker TV show as well, Poker After Dark – however, she wasn’t a host in that case, she played a Sit&Go against other poker commentators.
She was first hired by ESPN to do commentary on the WSOP Main Event in 2011. Since then, she called a number of other prestigious and highly publicized poker events, such as the European Poker Tour or the NBC National Heads-Up Championship.
→ Sponsorships ←
Scott was a brand ambassador to the online poker room partypoker between 2010 and 2014. In February 2016, she signed a sponsorship deal with another major poker site, 888Poker. She’s been on their roster ever since.
→ Scandals ←
Her bunny outfit
In April 2014, Kara Scott made a prop bet with fellow Canadian poker player Chris Tessaro during EPT San Remo in San Remo, Italy. The bet was if Scott failed to cash in the tournament she was playing in, she had to do the rest of the coverage of the EPT dressed as a rabbit.
Scott didn’t make it into the money, so she had to hold up her end of the bargain. However, much to the disappointment of many male poker fans, she didn’t go with the Playboy bunny costume. Instead, she put on a giant, fluffy, pink bunny suit for the show.
Latest poker news about Scott
