International Poker Tours Drive Poker Growth Post-UIGEA

The PokerStars European Poker Tour Grand Final recently pulled into Monte Carlo for the sixth year, marking another successful event at poker’s most glamorous tour stop of the year. The last six years have seen international poker tournaments grow tremendously in number, size, and overall importance to the industry. Today, far-flung tournament offerings rival established tour stops in the U.S., thanks in large part to efforts initiated by PokerStars.

Card Player Player of the Year (POY) competitors now need to consider a yearlong travel schedule in order to seriously contend for the title, due to the new importance of European events. Consider this: When David Pham won his first POY title in 2000, he didn’t cash once outside the U.S. In 2010, eight of the top 10 players in the current standings have cashed abroad during the first five months of the year.

Tournament poker has become an international phenomenon, and that success has enabled live-tournament poker to grow despite the restrictions imposed on the game by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. If poker’s popularity falters in the U.S., support now exists throughout the world to sustain the game. Let’s take a look at the international expansion of tournament poker.

European Poker Tour Provides the Spark

Tournament-poker attention outside the U.S. was centered on the Irish Open before the turn of the century. The event began in 1980, and it carried the torch as the major live-poker tournament in Europe for more than two decades. The Master Classics of Poker added another big European event to the yearly schedule when it started in 1993 in Amsterdam. The popular World Heads-Up Poker Championship began in Vienna, Austria, in 2001, preceding the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship in Las Vegas by a few years. English television shows like Late Night Poker and Poker Million also popularized tournament poker in Europe. The first Poker Million final table had 30 million viewers in 2000, and the champion was John Duthie.

Duthie proved to be a symbolic champion when he moved on to create the European Poker Tour in 2004. The EPT hosted its inaugural event in Barcelona, Spain, and was sponsored by PokerStars, which supplied a healthy stream of online qualifiers to help ensure its sustained growth. The first season saw 1,468 players compete in seven different countries for nearly €4.8 million. The field sizes were modest in the beginning, but the EPT turned the corner in 2007, when Gavin Griffin topped 705 opponents to win a huge first-place prize of €1.8 million at the Monte Carlo Grand Final. The large turnout and prize pool caught the attention of all professional poker players, and established it as a must-play for all serious tournament players.

As the tour spread to new countries, it oversaw new poker booms in emerging markets. Italy and Germany have been especially receptive to live-tournament poker, with the most recent German EPT main event in Berlin attracting 945 players, and the most recent Italian EPT main event in San Remo setting a record for a European tournament with 1,240 players. Season six of the EPT saw main events hosted in 13 countries, and nearly 9,000 players fought for prize pools totaling €53 million.

Tournament poker in Europe brought many new players into the limelight and provided opportunities for young players to test their skills before they turned 21. The success of the EPT also has led to new European-based tours — most notably, the Partouche Poker Tour in France, which features a Cannes main event in which €1 million is awarded to the champion. Other additions include the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, the Casinos Austria Poker Tour, and the European Masters of Poker, which have helped to fill out the European tournament calendar.

New World Order

The growth of the European Poker Tour is just one side of the international expansion of live-tournament poker spearheaded by PokerStars. The site now hosts live tournaments on five continents each year. The Asia Pacific Poker Tour began in 2007 with events in the Asia/Pacific market that have reached as far south as Auckland, New Zealand, and as far north as Seoul, South Korea, during four seasons. Macau, China, is a successful market in this arena, with participation topping 500 players in the 2008 APPT main event. The growth of the APPT has coincided with the rise of the Aussie Millions and the Asian Poker Tour within the region. PokerStars next ventured into Latin America in 2008 with the introduction of the Latin American Poker Tour, which includes events at South American and Mexican Riviera destinations.

Online qualifiers have proven to be invaluable to the expanding system of tours. Most online qualifying packages include airfare, accommodations, and spending money, which has created a calendar filled with destination tournaments. The most successful destination event is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, held each January at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. The 2010 tournament attracted a field of 1,529 players, with a total prize pool of almost $15 million. Certain destination events like the PCA and EPT London have grown to become festivals of poker, with dozens of side events offered before, during, and after the main event.

The most recent development at PokerStars is that many regional poker tours are being run to satisfy the growing demand. Those regional tours now include the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour, the Czech-Slovak Poker Tour, the Italian Poker Tour, the UK and Ireland Poker Tour, and the most recent addition in 2010, the North American Poker Tour. Other tournament series that have been tied to PokerStars include the France Poker Series, the Russian Poker Series, and the Estrellas Poker Tour in Spain. Thanks to the continued strength of the EPT, APPT, and LAPT, along with the new regional tours, PokerStars will host live-poker tournaments in more than 20 countries all over the world in 2010.

Following Suit

Poker’s international popularity has induced other tours to either start thinking globally or focus their attention outside the U.S.

The first WSOP Europe event took place in London in 2008, and it is now a yearly marquee event that awards multiple gold bracelets and attracts thousands of players. The history of World Poker Tour events offers another glimpse at the trend back toward international events. The Grand Prix de Paris joined the WPT in 2003, and it was part of the tour for three seasons before it was dropped from the schedule after 2005. The WPT did not return to Europe until 2007, when the WPT Spanish Championship took place in Barcelona. Since that time, it has been steadily increasing its selection of international events. The WPT already has hosted tournaments in Venice, Barcelona, Slovakia, Cyprus, Marrakech (the first major tour event held in Africa), and Bucharest during season VIII, and the tour returned to Paris in 2010. The growth of international WPT events coincided with the purchase of the tour by PartyGaming, which has its headquarters in Gibraltar. The company has previously sponsored international events, such as the PartyPoker Million.

Full Tilt Poker also has circled back to Europe after a hiatus. It was the first site to host an international poker tournament in Monaco in 2004. The Monte Carlo Millions was the marquee European event in both 2004 and 2005, but the EPT then took hold in the popular city-state. Full Tilt removed itself from the European tournament scene in the years that followed, but it is warming back up to international poker tournaments.

Full Tilt first sponsored the Poker Million in 2009, taking over that role from the British gaming company Ladbrokes, which created the event. It was also in 2009 that the Full Tilt Poker Series Espana launched. It attracted 795 players during season one, and paid out more than €1.5 million in prize money. There are four more events on the schedule in 2010, including a stop in Madrid, and the Grand Final in Barcelona.

The New Horizon

How international expansion of the game will continue to affect live-tournament poker is anyone’s guess, but a few things are clear. The poker world has been introduced to an entirely new roster of talented players from all over the globe.

A new form of poker stamina also has emerged that requires players to adapt to new time zones and cultures on a week-to-week basis. Adjustments also need to be made to regional differences in poker strategy, and the players who make them quickly and effectively will post strong results in both Europe and the U.S. Recent stars who have built their reputations on their ability to win consistently anywhere in the world include Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Sorel Mizzi, Mike “Timex” McDonald, and Jason Mercier. Mizzi is currently in second place in the Card Player 2010 POY standings, thanks to his performance in six different countries this year.

There are now so many tournament options available worldwide that the game can weather economic downturns or regional legislation limitations. Online poker rooms continue to offer satellites for events, and they remain a popular attraction in the poker community. Even though there now are few untouched markets, new tournament locations continue to emerge as tours expand. The EPT will host a new event in Tallinn, Estonia, to start season seven, the World Poker Tour will visit London for the first time, and the WSOP Circuit series is considering expansion into South Africa; and all of this is scheduled to take place before the end of 2010.