The World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions is easily one of the most recognized and prestigious poker tournaments in the world. All through July, New Jersey punters were allowed to get into the WSOP Tournament of Champions by taking part in the platform’s monthly circuit series. The online circuit was scheduled to take place between July 6th and July 17th.
Participants that emerged winners in the circuit events would automatically be enlisted in the Tournament of Champions. WSOP gave poker players in New Jersey a chance to walk away with one of the 12 championship rings on offer, as well as a chance to take home some of the $1 million guaranteed prize pool.
The WSOP Main Event, which had a buy-in of $525 kicked off on July 17th for players in Nevada and New Jersey as both states share a player pool. Any poker player located in either state could take part and walk away a winner. All the events in the online circuit featured No Limit Hold’em tournaments with the exception of 1 Omaha tournament.
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12 rings also promised for WSOP PA and WSOP MI customers
Online poker players in the Keystone State and Michigan were also allowed to take part in their own separate online circuits. Both Pennsylvania’s and Michigan’s customers battled it out for 12 rings. Unlike New Jersey and Nevada, however, poker players in these 2 states could only compete against each other within the state. Currently, Pennsylvania is not part of any inter-state poker.
So far, only a handful of states have a shared liquidity pool. Michigan recently received approval to enter the multistate internet gaming agreement on April 6th this year. This means that Michigan will soon join Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada in sharing traffic but it will take some time for this to occur. Shared liquidity is important in online poker tournaments because there is no vertical that is more affected by market size than online poker.
Shared liquidity allows online poker platforms to have access to as many potential poker participants, which increases the chances of generating twice as much income. Without poker players at the table, tournaments dry up, which makes it more difficult for operators in smaller markets to keep offering variety and larger prize pools. As the market gets bigger, so do the tournament guarantees.
Although multi-state poker is still a very new concept in the US online poker market, the good news is that it is gradually catching on. As mentioned earlier, only 4 states have so far formed such an agreement and only one operator, WSOP, has been able to take advantage of this shared liquidity. Hopefully, in the coming years, more states and online poker operators will step up to take advantage of the interstate networking opportunities available to them.
In total, poker players in Michigan and Pennsylvania each enjoyed combined prizes exceeding $500,000. The online circuits in the 2 states were held concurrently between July 6th and 17th. All ring event winners were also given the last chance to grab a seat at the Tournament of Champions event, which was scheduled to take place on July 18th in Vegas as the final WSOP event in the summer calendar.
The return of WSOP Online
Meanwhile, WSOP recently announced the return of WSOP Online 2022. This will be an online festival that will be accessible on WSOP for US gamblers, as well as GGPoker, which is WSOP’s partner for international tournaments. WSOP Online 2022 will be the third version of the online tournament series to be held since its launch.
WSOP online will consist of various gold bracelet tournaments, as well as some side action on the GGPoker platform. The international tournaments on GGPoker are scheduled to take place between August 14th and September 27th while WSOP.com will take place between September 10th and October 18th.
All the bracelet winners from WSOP Online, both internationally and locally in the US, will earn a place at next year’s Tournament of Champions, which will also be held in Vegas. GGPoker will be hosting the No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, which is better known by professional poker players as the online Main Event.
This championship is expected to feature a buy-in of $5000. It is worth mentioning that WSOP Online still holds the Guinness Book of World Records spot for the largest prize pool in an online poker tournament. This year will be no exception as it will again feature an astounding prize pool guarantee of $20,000,000.
GGPoker has organized 33 bracelet events that will boast an array of buy-ins that range from $100 to $10,000. As mentioned earlier, all the online satellites for WSOP online international events will be held on GGPoker, which will allow poker players to take part in these events thus increasing their chances of taking home the gold. All new customers on GGPoker will be eligible to claim a welcome bonus, to boost their chances.
This year, the WSOP Online action will be extended to poker players in Michigan and Pennsylvania for the first time with each state getting 6 weekly bracelet competitions. These 6 weekly bracelets will be in addition to the 33 that will be awarded on New Jersey and Nevada’s shared liquidity grid.
For out-of-state players to take part in the WSOP online tournaments, they must travel to any of these states to ensure that their devices are geotagged properly. Buy-ins for the tournaments will start from $365 and climb to $10,000. During the festivities, No Limit Hold’em will be the most featured format although some tournaments will also feature Omaha Hi/Lo and Omaha events.
Final Thoughts
This year’s WSOP may have concluded, but that doesn’t mean that poker players will be short of events and competitions to take part in. Case in point, the return of WSOP online promises to offer poker players some of the largest and most lucrative cash prizes. WSOP online generated massive prize pools exceeding $25,000,000 in both 2020 and 2021 making it the most lucrative domestic online tournament series of all time.
