BARACK OBAMA is winning support for his presidential bid from a novel quarter - America's poker players.

Doyle Brunson, America's foremost living player and formerly a lifelong Republican, has come out for the Democrat candidate. Another leading poker player, 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 Brunson, twice world champion, said he could not back Senator McCain because the Republicans supported the American ban on internet gambling. Senator Obama has said he would like to regulate online poker and gambling, rather than criminalise it.

"Poker players have to support Obama," Mr Brunson said. "God help the internet gambling business if McCain does happen to win."