Content Editor
Martin has been active as a writer, editor, and reporter in the gambling space since the mid-2000s. Over the years, he has covered major shifts in the industry, including the poker boom, the emergence of daily fantasy sports, the rapid expansion of legal sports betting, and the growth of social and sweepstakes-style gaming platforms.
Martin brings a deep editorial background shaped by years of writing and editing for leading gambling industry outlets, including long tenures with PokerStars and PokerNews. Alongside his industry work, he has more than 25 years of experience teaching college courses focused on writing, literature, and film.
Martin is the author of "Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game," an in-depth exploration of poker’s place in popular culture. The book earned the Global Poker Award for Media Content of the Year in 2019.
In addition to his work on poker history, Martin has written extensively about horror and science fiction cinema and has published two novels. His most recent collection of essays, "Horror and Science Fiction Cinema and Society," was released by Routledge in late 2024.
Martin Harris is a longtime gambling writer and editor with more than two decades of experience covering the industry. Early in his career, he spent years traveling to report on major poker tournaments throughout the United States, including regular stints at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and at the old Sands Creek Resort, now known as Wind Creek Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania. His reporting has also taken him well beyond the US, with on-the-ground coverage of events in Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa.
In recent years, his work has broadened to include a wider range of legal gambling formats, such as online and retail casino games, sports betting, and social and sweepstakes casinos. He regularly tests a variety of gaming sites firsthand, often playing blackjack, baccarat, roulette, poker, and a rotating list of favorite slots while building up Sweepstakes Coins. More recently, he has begun covering the rise of prediction markets and has developed insight regarding those burgeoning platforms.
Martin holds a Ph.D. in English and has authored several books and academic publications, including the award-winning Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game, a poster for which makes a brief appearance in the 2021 film The Card Counter. He lives with his family on a horse farm in North Carolina and enjoys sports, music, movies, reading, writing, and teaching part-time in the American Studies program at UNC Charlotte.
Catena Media
Content Editor
2020-present
PokerNews, PokerStars, World Poker Tour
Poker Reporter
2008-2019
UNC Charlotte, American Studies program
Adjunct Professor
2011-present
University of Indiana at Bloomington
Ph.D., English
2000
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.A., English
1994
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
B.A., English
1990
UNC Tar Heels, Carolina Panthers, Charlotte Hornets
Just one… DOOK (i.e., Duke)!
The Cincinnati Kid
Short-Stacked Shamus
Global Poker Award, Media Content of the Year (2019)
for Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game
I try to never get ahead of myself. Until a bet is fully settled or a hand is completely over, I don’t assume anything has gone my way.
Like many my age, it started with online poker during the early 2000s boom. One thing led to another, and suddenly I was covering the industry full-time.
Any content that promotes so-called “guaranteed win” systems. When you play games in which the house has an edge (i.e., essentially all casino games), no strategy can beat that edge over the long term. Nor can you ever entirely eliminate variance or risk in gambling. Content that promises sure profits is almost always misleading, oversimplified, or intentionally deceptive.
The normalization or “mainstreaming” of gambling. What once felt niche or even taboo is now widely regulated, openly discussed, and part of everyday entertainment for many adults.
The classic gambler’s fallacy has to be the answer. That idea that what happened on the last spin, or roll, or hand has anything at all to do with what comes next.
A bankroll “vault” that lets you lock away funds while you play. It’s one of the simplest and most effective responsible gambling tools I’ve seen.
The long poker scene in A Streetcar Named Desire, “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, the use of poker on many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings by Cassius M. Coolidge, and poker-playing US presidents, just to name a few.
The rise of prediction markets has begun to have a serious effect already, giving rise to the idea of betting (or buying shares/positions/etc.) on anything.
