The World Series Of Poker Made A 5 Million Gamble And Won

Since the poker boom of 2003, the WSOP gradually added events to its calendar, which also expanded into November with a live telecast of the WSOP Main Event. The tournament even added a $1 million event for the best, and richest, players on the planet. So what’s bigger than a million dollar tournament? The Colossus. This isn’t a cyborg or plot to a new sci-fi movie. It was a $565 No-Limit Hold’em event. This is the smallest entry fee this millennium for the WSOP. It was also the riskiest. The goal was simple: create the largest live poker tournament ever. To entice interest, the WSOP guaranteed a $5 million prize pool. The largest previous live tournament field was 8,773 entries in the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Talk about a gamble. Let’s assume the event broke the record by one person. It would have generated $4,957,310 in fees. The WSOP would have lost $40,000, which doesn’t mean much to a facility. That doesn’t include the cost of operating the tournament or that space that could have been used for other events. Barely breaking the record would have been a financial fold; anything less could have been a bust. As with all gambling, with the risk comes a reward. For a sport that has lost its luster with Black Friday, more online play and a steady decline in tournament entries at select tournaments, the Colossus brought poker mainstream media attention. It also brought accessibility to the WSOP, where many events have entries fees of $2,500 or higher. For casual players who always wanted to enter a WSOP event, this was a chance to say they could do it without breaking the bank. The gamble payed out, and then some. The tournament broke a record with 14,824 entrants. Because of the tournament structure, players who busted out early were allowed to reenter. As result, the final field was 22,734. At $565 a pop, that’s $12,844,710 in entry fees. The prize pool finished at $11,187,000. More than 2,200 people ended up making money. The smallest payout was nearly $1,100. Lance Garcia had a slightly better day. He outlasted 22,733 entries to win the first ever Colossus and the more than $600,000 (and fancy bracelet) that comes with winning the tournament. That left nearly $1 million for the WSOP organizers, not to mention the free publicity and money spent in Vegas during the tournament. For something that could have been a colossal bust, the Colossus proved to be a major boost to a sport looking for its next boom. And at $565 an entry, it makes the perfect gift for the poker fan in your life.