Andy Bloch, said most players in Las Vegas for the main event of the World Series of Poker, which began on Thursday, were pro-Obama.

Mr Bloch, who has won $US715,000 ($742,500) so far at this year's World Series, sees Mr Obama's poker skills, rather than his gambling policies, as the better qualification for the job. "There are a lot of skills playing poker that would help the chief executive," he said.

"In poker you have to put yourself in the shoes of your opponents, get inside their heads and figure out what they're thinking, what their actions mean, what they would think your actions mean, and read bluffs.

"One thing that got us into the Iraq war was that George Bush didn't realise Saddam Hussein was bluffing, trying to look like a big man, when he really had no weapons of mass destruction."