888Poker just recently celebrated its 2oth anniversary. To celebrate with its customers, 888Poker organized a sentimental weeklong series that featured a collection of its most popular tournaments of the past few years. The series, which was dubbed the Retro Week Series, was promising participants $888,000 in guarantees.
Throughout the series, 888Poker customers will have lots of events and tournaments to choose from including the Fish ‘n Chips tournament that’s targeted at low-stakes poker players. 888 customers will also be treated to an array of special daily challenges, as well as the colossal $215 Mega Deep that will serve as the Main Event for these series.
The Mega Deep promises participants guaranteed prizes worth an estimated $300,000. The Retro Week events are mostly geared towards poker players looking for low buy-ins. As such, most of the buy-ins range between $11 and $33. The most expensive buy-in of the lot will be the Main Event, which will feature a $525 buy-in.
The 888 Retro week will entirely be devoted to No-Limit Hold’em, which is what many professional and recreational poker players prefer. Various formats will be included in the books to cater to a wide array of tastes including progressive knockout tournaments which have become increasingly popular among professional and novice poker players alike.
888 Poker has been around for almost as long as there has been a legal online poker market in the US. Despite the numerous changes that have taken place in the industry, 888 Poker has remained one of the most recognizable brands in the online poker market.
888 Poker has always taken great care to remain innovative to keep the online poker experience fresh for its players. This 20th-anniversary retro celebration will allow 888 Poker to show its gratitude to the customers that have helped the brand become a mainstay in the country’s online poker market.
Last year, PokerStars threw a similar throwback tournament to celebrate its own 20th anniversary. PokerStars’ nostalgic tournament also featured a variety of bonuses and promotions with the events culminating in the Big 20 Main Event. The Main Event promised guarantees worth $5,000,000 with just a small buy-in of $55.
The online poker market in the country has been growing steadily since early 2010. The poker market exploded in popularity when amateur poker player Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker. By 2012, the industry seemed to be thriving and doing well and punters even had an array of poker rooms to choose from.
Despite the strides that had been made, the market still had a lot of issues to handle under the surface. Whilst players enjoyed several options when it came to poker variants, some sites were still struggling to attract customers to the fold. So much so that some online poker sites would often pay players to fill up their tables while other rooms were forced to offer free games before finally monetizing the platforms.
Although these issues were mostly being faced by operators, poker players enjoyed numerous choices. But security started to become an issue after a while and players started to report several incidents of customers being swindled by the various sites. As player confidence continued to shake up the industry, Black Friday arrived to change the face of poker as people knew it.
During Black Friday, 3 of the most visited online poker sites at the time were shut down. But the troubles were far from over. On April 15th, 2015, the Department of Justice shut down all the primary online poker sites that had been offering payouts to players in the country thus crippling the online poker industry within hours.
With these massive changes, the industry was forced to very quickly reimagine how online poker would be played in the future. Black Friday may have led to some of the biggest losses in the online poker industry. However, the event helped to usher in the regulated online poker market that exists today.
Predictably, Nevada was the first state to offer regulated online poker back in 2012. However, 2 other states, namely Delaware and New Jersey quickly followed suit. With regulation, poker players were guaranteed a safe and controlled environment to participate in their favorite pastimes. As a result of a regulated environment, the poker market in the country has grown to become one of the most formidable in the world.
What we cover
888Poker Expecting Unprecedented Growth This Year
888 Poker is expecting a rapid expansion this year that will allow the brand to celebrate another 20 years in the industry. 888 Poker plans to continue its growth trajectory by organizing live poker events all over Europe. It already has a live poker festival planned for the popular Grosvenor Victoria Casino.
The festival in London is expected to kick off on April 20th and will offer poker players an opportunity to battle it out over the course of 11 days. The festival will offer lots of high-stakes real money games that are guaranteed to keep poker players glued.
As one of the most popular retail casinos in London, the Grosvenor Victoria Casino could not have made a better venue to host the festival. This Live High Stakes festival is going to start on April 20th and will also consist of several smaller events with lower buy-ins.
Final Thoughts
Since Black Friday took place, many of the problems that were encountered in 2010 have been assessed and improvements made. Today’s online poker player now feels a lot more secure knowing that the game they love is controlled by world-class software and not underhanded tactics designed to get them to lose their hard-earned money.
Since that dreadful Black Friday, online poker has done its best to evolve and thrive. By allowing more stringent regulations and measures to be put in place, the market is thriving once more. With a broad range of games and options available to punters, not only does the online poker environment offer more challenges to participants, but also more safety as well.
