The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is an event that casino and poker affiliates shouldn’t be ignoring. The popularity of the WSOP is cited as the biggest driver behind online gambling traffic in the United States, according to comScore.
Its relentless popularity seems to come from its sense that anyone can win — a change in game’s dynamics over the past decade universally attributed to rise of online poker.
Entries are modest enough to be within the aspirations of lots of normal online poker players: “There are plenty of high-dollar tournament offerings, but out of the 58 tournaments offered, 27 will be open to the public with bargain buy-ins of $1,500 or less,” points out Chuck Blout.
Even better, most online poker rooms offer tons of qualifier tournaments — that’s all free added marketing for poker affiliates.
Full 2011 Schedule Released
The WSOP is coming off of its second-biggest main event of all time — the biggest was in 2006, coincidentally, the last WSOP tournament before the UIGEA was passed.
WSOP popularity is surging again: Filling out the outline announced in December, the full details of the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) schedule were released this week.
And, true to its epic ambitions, the schedule means that this WSOP bigger is likely to be for higher stakes than any other poker series, ever. The tournament kicks off on May 31; the Main Event starts July 7.
“It’s staggering to think that last year alone the WSOP hosted nine of the 17 largest tournaments in poker history,” says WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel. “We had 44 events produce more than a $1 million prize pool, so we can’t wait to get at it again and offer players at all levels the best poker action on the planet.”
ESPN’s got the full schedule here.