Online Poker Market Hits Record Payouts
The summer behind us demonstrated that sky is the limit when it comes to online poker gambling in any sense of the word.
Not only did the number of poker tournaments increase drastically during the past period but the numbers are nothing short of mind-blowing. Just over the last month, seven major online poker markets have hosted ten tournaments in some of the largest poker markets. Total guarantees offered were a record-setting $170 million but even such high prize pools were surpassed to a whopping $217 million.
With more and more jurisdictions striving to open online poker and sports betting services, the competition will only increase which basically means more tournaments will come with higher prizes.
The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) alone, that took place between 2 and 18 September, went with a bang. There were 185 tournaments, over one million entries and a prize pool of $100 million.
The situation was quite jaw-dropping in the spring when a total of 1,590 tournaments were held by the major online operators. Total guarantees offered by the sites were $140 million and that figure was surpassed to $177.5 million. The sum was distributed through the dot-com market while an additional $40.3 million was shelled out through segregated European markets.
But the spring situation can’t compare to the recent numbers when prize pools increased to a total of $217,803,107.
Still, like in all parts of life, the success has its dark side. The industry has suffered various attacks that led to cancellation of tournaments and cash games over the last couple of months. Eight out of ten top online poker sites, including PokerStars, 888poker, partypoker, Winamax, Americas Cardroom, have been targeted and suffered high-profile dedicated denial of service (DDOS) attacks.
They are all pursuing legal action but it’s a tough task considering how easy is to buy a DDOS attack right on the Internet and how many people want to make the industry look bad because they suck at poker or want to tear the competition apart.
