BY TOM SOMACH

Top professional poker players aren’t just making money at the poker tables these days.

Thanks to the exposure they receive playing poker on television, many have become celebrities in their own right and now command lucrative speaking fees for making personal appearances.

All American Speakers (www.allamericanspeakers.com), a speakers’ bureau based in Raleigh, North Carolina, provides celebrity speakers to individuals and groups wanting to hire them for public and private events.

In years past, clients came to All American Speakers wanting an astronaut or a professional athlete or a TV comedian to liven up their corporate function or country club banquet.

And All American Speakers would oblige, making available for an evening the likes of Neil Armstrong, Joe Montana or Jay Leno.

If those names didn’t strike your fancy, All American Speakers could also get you Pete Rose, Walter Cronkite, Jimmy Carter, Lee Iacocca, Don Shula, Tom Cruise, Mario Andretti, George Foreman, Tom Hanks, Ted Nugent, Donald Trump, Joe Namath, Ross Perot, Joe Torre, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer, Clint Eastwood, Don Rickles, Barbara Walters, Bob Woodward, Suzanne Somers, “Buzz” Aldrin, Jesse Jackson, “Magic” Johnson, Alan Alda, Sean Penn, “Spike” Lee, Wayne Gretzky, Dan Quayle, Pamela Anderson, Joe Paterno or any number of other celebrities on their roster for hire.

But now, those names are soooooooo 20th-century.

In the 21st century, the speaking demand is often for names like Chris Moneymaker, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer and Annie Duke.

Yup, professional poker players are the latest belle of the speakers’ bureau’s ball.

Whether it’s for a private party, a corporate retreat, a fund-raiser, a trade show or a hardware convention, poker pros more and more are being sought out for personal appearances and speeches that sometimes can pay up to six figures.

In addition to Moneymaker, who won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event in 2003; Raymer, who won it the following year; and Duke, who’s won a number of women’s WSOP events, All American Speakers also books speaking gigs for poker pros Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, Joe Hachem, Jennifer Harman, Scotty Nguyen, Robert Varkonyi, John Juanda, Barry Greenstein, Sam Farha, Phil “The Unibomber” Laak, Erik Seidel, T.J. Cloutier, “Amarillo Slim” Preston and many others.

Used to be you had to land on the moon, get elected President, play pro sports or act in a movie before someone would pay to hear to you speak.

But the times, they are a-changing.

Now all you have to do is make that inside straight draw and win a poker tournament on TV, and for the rest of your life you can collect fat paychecks for talking about it.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach at yahoo dot com.)