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It sure looks like online poker is back after a PokerStars ‘Sunday Million’ tournament just broke the company’s record for the largest prize pool in the tournament’s weekly history. With tens of millions of people stuck at home all across the planet it looks like a LOT of people are rediscovering their love of online poker and honestly, just typing this out I’m getting the urge to get back in the game.
With almost 61,000 players entered in last week’s PokerStars ‘Sunday Millions’ the total prize pool ballooned to $18,603,200 and more than $1.1 million went to the winner. The buy-in for the tournament is $215 per player but there are plenty of other feeder tournaments on PokerStars which allow players to play their way into the Sunday Millions.
This was the third-largest prize pool for any online poker tournament ever, according to ESPN’s Chalk:
A player from Brazil with the screen name “AAAArthur” won the tournament, after the final four players agreed to divvy up $3.67 million in prize money. After the deal was made, “AAAArthur” bested the other finalists, winning the championship with a full house — twos over jacks — on the final hand.
“AAAArthur” won $1,192,802, followed by runner up “CrAzY_sTeFaN” with $921,328, “Salonteskis” with $826,919 and “Caroline2963” with $786,873.
It’s the third-largest prize pool for an online poker tournament ever, behind only two $20 million tournaments hosted by online site Partypoker in 2018 and 2019. Those tournaments, however, had significantly higher buy-ins ($5,300 and 10,300) compared to the “Sunday Million.” (via)
A MASSIVE chunk of the world’s population is stuck inside right now and it’s certainly interesting to see that thousands of those people have poker on the mind as it isn’t exactly the most stress-relieving activity out there.
In the United States, online pokers is only legal in Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania but the tournament is hugely popular across the globe and Germany was the most represented country in this week’s Sunday Millions. According to ESPN’s Chalk, PokerStars is seeing a boom in activity right now due to the global situation:
PokerStars, which operates in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has seen increased traffic in recent weeks. Matt Primeaux, president of FOX Bet and PokerStars USA, told ESPN that guaranteed prize pools for online poker tournaments in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have increased by approximately 40% in each of the last two weekends.
The prize pool for the showcase Sunday online tournament in Pennsylvania on PokerStars has climbed from $50,000 two weeks ago to $105,000 this upcoming Sunday.
“If you would’ve told me when PokerStars launched in Pennsylvania that they’d have a $100,000 prize pool anytime soon, I would’ve laughed,” said Lance Bradley, president and editor-in-chief of poker site PocketFives and author of “The Pursuit of Poker Success.” (via)
It sure looks like online poker is back, at least for now. It’s a shame that they STILL haven’t figured out how to make it work nationwide in the US and I really don’t have any hopes that they will in the future.
For more on the emerging poker boom, you can click here to head on over to ESPN.