The World Series of Poker, held annually at Las Vegas casinos, was first started in 1970 when Benny Binion invited 7 of the most famous poker players to the Horseshoe Casino for a tournament.
The tournament has grown substantially over the years and has been sponsored by Harrah’s Entertainment since 2005.
Each event’s winner receives a cash prize based on the total number of players and buy-in costs, as well as a WSOP bracelet, which is known to be the most prestigious non-cash prize a poker player can win.
The annual WSOP main event is a $10,000 buy-in no limit Texas hold ‘em tournament that typically draws participants totaling in the thousands from all over the world.
The main event in 2011, which featured 6,865 players, began on July 7th and took eight days and over 500,000 hands to reach the final nine players.
Like any event or sports league, the WSOP also has corporate sponsors and licensed products, which like any leagues or events, pay fees to market themselves as an official sponor and/or licensee and exclusively use the WSOP insigina and cross-promote with their events. Besides the Harrah’s properties and ESPN, major sponsors have included Miller Brewing’s “Milwaukee’s Best” brand of beers, Pepsi’s SoBe Adreneline Rush energy drink (sponsors of the 2005 TOC), Helene Curtis’ Degree brand of anti-perspirant/deodorant, Card Player magazine, and GlaxoSmithKline/Bayer’s Levitra erectile dysfunction medicine are all official corporate sponsors. Licensees include Activision (video games for different plaforms such as Nintendo’s GameCube, Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and PC featuring computer generated versions of stars like Ferguson among others), and products made by different companies ranging from chip sets, playing cards, hand held games and clothing like caps and shirts. The fees and licences bring in over a million dollars to Harrah’s.
The main event
The main event of the WSOP is the $10,000 buy-in no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. Winners of the event not only get the largest prize of the tournament and golden bracelet, but additionally their picture is placed into the Gallery of Champions at Binion’s.
There have been many memorable events during the WSOP, including Jack Straus’s 1982 comeback win after discovering he had one $500 chip left when he thought he was out of the tournament.
A few players have won the WSOP multiple times, including Stu Ungar who won in 1980, 1981 and 1997. Ungar had a drug problem that spanned decades, which makes his 1997 win all the more amazing. Since Ungar had no money to enter the tournament in 1997, his friend and six-time WSOP bracelet winner Billy Baxter gave him the entrance fee. Ungar split the $1,000,000 prize evenly with Baxter.
Johnny Chan won back to back in 1987 and 1988. Chan finished 2nd in 1989 to the youngest WSOP main event winner of all time, Phil Hellmuth. The final hand of the 1988 event between Chan and Erik Seidel would later be featured in the movie Rounders.
Chris Moneymaker won the main event in 2003 after qualifying through a $39 satellite tournament at the PokerStars online cardroom. Four players at the final table of the 2004 main event qualified through PokerStars as well, including the winner, Greg Raymer and second place finisher David Williams. In 2005, eventual champion Joseph Hachem entered the old fashioned way: with the $10,000 buy-in. After winning, he signed a contract to act as a representative of PokerStars also.
It may be that winning the WSOP makes legends out of people, but some living poker legends have tried unsuccessfully for years to win the main event, including: T. J. Cloutier (2000 and 1985 runner-up), Erik Seidel (1988 runner-up), Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Barry Greenstein, Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Howard Lederer.
From 1971 on, all WSOP events have been tournaments with cash prizes. In 1973 a new event, five-card stud, was added to the main event of No Limit Texas Hold ‘em. Since then new events have been added and removed. In 2006 there will be 42 events at the WSOP, including poker games like Omaha and Razz as well as events only for seniors and women. Event winners get, in addition to their prize money, the coveted golden bracelet.
Doyle Brunson (nicknamed “Texas Dolly”) and Johnny Chan have each won ten bracelets, while Phil Hellmuth has nine. Doyle’s son, Todd Brunson, won a bracelet in a pot-limit Omaha event in 2005, making them the first father/son combo to win at least one event at the WSOP. Also, actress Jennifer Tilly became the second non-poker celebrity to win a WSOP event when she won the Women’s No-Limit Texas Hold-’Em event in 2005. French singer/actor Patrick Bruel won a Limit Hold’em championship in 1998.
The number of participants in the WSOP has grown every year, and in recent years the growth has exploded. In 2000 there were 4,780 entrants in the various events, but in 2005, the number rose to over 23,000 players. In the main event alone, participants grew from 839 in 2003, to 2,576 in 2004, to 5,619 in 2005. For the 2006 main event, a cap of 8,000 players has been established. Much of this growth can be attributed to the WSOP airing on ESPN and the World Poker Tour being shown on the Travel Channel, along with other USA television over-the-air and cable networks such as Fox Sports Net and their “Poker Superstars” series, Bravo with the “Celebrity Poker Showdown” series and GSN with their “Poker Royale” series, as well as the boom in online poker cardrooms on the World Wide Web.
Like most tournaments, the sponsoring casino takes a “rake” (a percentage of between six and ten percent, depending on the buy-in amount) from the buy-ins and distributes the rest, hence the prize money increases with more players. In the 2005 main event $52,818,610 (US) in prize money was distributed, including a $7.5 million first prize. Subtracting the $10,000 buy-ins, over $47 million was won by 560 players in the event. Carl Ygborn finished “on the bubble” (in 561st place), and Harrah’s gave him a free entry into the 2006 Main Event.
One event, that was scheduled for Biloxi, Mississippi, was canceled after the Grand Casino Biloxi, which was scheduled to host the event, suffered major damage from Hurricane Katrina. The Rio also hosted the 2006 World Series of Poker, which began on June 25 with satellite events and formally began the day after with the annual Casino Employee event, won in 2006 by Chris Gros. 2006 featured the “Tournament of Champions” on June 25 and 26, won by Mike Sexton. Various events led up to the main event, which was held from July 28 until August 10. The first prize of $12 million was awarded to Jamie Gold.
The World Series of Poker is the most prestigious set of poker tournaments in the world.
Origins
The original World Series of Poker was started by Tom Morehead of the Riverside casino in Reno and was an invitational event. The set of tournaments the World Series of Poker (WSOP) would evolve to was the brainchild of Las Vegas legend, casino owner, and poker player Benny Binion as well as his two sons Jack and Ted.
Johnny Moss, Becky Binion, and Puggy Pearson at the 1974 World Series of Poker
The Binion family not only nurtured the WSOP, but poker in general. Prior to the 1970s, poker was not found at many casinos because of the difficulty of keeping cheaters out. Through better security techniques as well as the Binion’s tireless promotion through events like the WSOP, poker became a very popular game.
In 1970 the first WSOP at Binion’s Horseshoe took place with seven players. The winner, Johnny Moss was elected by his peers as the first World Champion of Poker and received a silver cup as a prize.
Johnny Moss, Becky Binion, and Puggy Pearson at the 1974 World Series of Poker