PokerStars Has Killer WeekendSunday Million Breaks World Record for Largest Poker Tournament |
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What a weekend for PokerStars!
On Saturday, the online poker giant celebrated its 10 billionth hand by giving away $100,000 to a 19 year-old woman from Canada who just happened to be sitting at the right table at the right time.
Then on Sunday, 10,894 players entered the site's Sunday Million, which generated a prize pool of $2.4 million. It was the largest poker tournament in terms of participants the world has ever seen.
The event attracted so many people thanks in part to the Big 10 Billion celebration that climaxed this weekend. As part of the promotion, PokerStars added an extra $250,000 to the prize pool, and the site was swarming with people this weekend. Most of the time this weekend saw more than 100,000 players playing at once.
Aaron "011180" Kanter, who finished fourth in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event, nearly took the Sunday Million down. Instead, he ended up agreeing to a deal when it got to heads-up before eventually falling to tanbai.
Sunday's tournament took 11 hours to complete, put more than 2,600 players in the money, and awarded $187,901 as a top prize. The top nine finishers were:
tanbai (United States) $187,901
Aaron "011180" Kanter (United States) $160,875
PiMaster (United States) $85,736
jeffbeesdat (United States) $59,991
rf11527 (United States) $45,661
uncpeej (United States) $34,974
rushcezar (United States) $24,530
oldschool043 (United States) $17,244
schulle1 (Germany) $12,144
A two-way chip percentage chop was made between tanbai and 011180. They then played for $30,000.
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A Short History
Online poker players based in the United States should thank their lucky stars that PokerStars did not go public like its online rival PartyPoker did back in 2005. If it did, it most likely would have followed the trail out of the U.S. that was blazed by PartyGaming after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law in October.
Instead, PokerStars, which is based in San Jose, Costa Rica, decided that the U.S. market was just too good to ignore. At one point in early fall, before the UIGE Act was snuck through on the back of a port security bill, it was estimated that more than 80 percent of the world's online gambling population lived in the United States. Although player numbers dropped immediately after the UIGE Act was signed into law, it was a mere bump in PokerStar's - and online poker's - history.
Because it's not publicly traded, it doesn't have to undergo the scrutiny that publicly traded companies have to endure for the safety of the investors. PartyGaming decided to pull out of the U.S. because of its relationships with both the London Stock Exchange and the banks that helped facilitate the stock launch.
It took PokersStars four years to deal its five billionth hand, and then less than a year to deal another five billion. At 11:35 a.m. PT on a Tuesday, nearly 95,000 players were playing poker on the site.
Although the legality of online poker in the United States is still in question - and a handful of politicians out there would like to see online gambling legalized, taxed, and regulated - PokerStars is flourishing in the U.S. market. And like PartyGaming and its other competitors, it's throwing millions on marketing to the rest of the world.
On Sept. 5, 2005, PokerStars mailed a press release announcing that the first event in its World Championship of Online Poker that year made history as the largest online poker tournament to ever take place. It more than doubled the record set the previous year.
The number of entrants was 3,062.
Comments
OldBookGuy
over 4 years ago
This article makes clear a great case for regulating and taxing online gaming by the U S congress.
No, I nor most actually favor this, however it is better than nothing.
I suggest copy and pasting this story to your congressional representative, I already have.
http://www.house.gov/