A popular annual event in Las Vegas, the World Series of Poker is the largest set of tournaments all over the world. It is a month long tournament sponsored by Harrah’s Entertainment.
This tournament features fifty events of various poker game categories. The emerging winner for each category gets a sought-after special gold bracelet. The main event and the highlight of the tournament is the $10,000 no-limit hold'em "Main Event" with a multi-million dollar prize for the champion.
The very first World Series of Poker was held at the Holiday Hotel Casino in Reno, in 1968. It was a by-invitation event spearheaded by Tom Moore from San Antonia Texas.
The credit to the type of tournament currently experienced in the recent World Series of Poker events goes to Benny Binion and his sons, jack and Ted. Benny Binion was the owner of Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. In 1970 sponsored an invitational tournament with seven top class poker players at Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas.
The Binions have developed appropriate security and marketing strategies that the current World Series of Poker events now enjoy.
From 1971 onwards, all World Series of Poker tournaments have sumptuous amounts of cash prizes at stake. Thorough the years, many events and games have been added and removed to the tournament, like in 1973 Five-card stud was added to the main event of no limit Texas hold 'em.
From 2006 to present, there are 45 events at the World Series of Poker, encompassing most of poker variants.
Texas hold 'Em, Omaha hold 'em and Seven-card stud and lowball variants are currently played, while H.O.R.S.E. and S.H.O.E. were played in the past and returned in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
Chinese poker and Five card stud are example of games that were taken out and are not being played currently. The winner for each game wins the cash prize (literally paid cash and delivered in cardboard boxes) and gets the prestigious gold bracelet. Phil Hellmuth is known to have won the most bracelets, 11 and counting.
Every year, the number of participants in the World Series of Poker grows exponentially.
By the year 2000 there were 4,780 participants total. Surprisingly, this exploded to over 23,000 in 2005. This phenomenon is called the "Moneymaker Effect" attributed to Chris Moneymaker. Chris Moneymaker was an amateur player who qualified through a satellite tournament online with just $39 and eventually won 2.5 million dollars.
Along with extensive media coverage, this event is projected to gain even more popularity in the years to come.
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