WSOP News

**spearmaster** · 18th July 2007, 08:17 PM

Well, this may herald the beginning of a huge poker boom in Asia. Although past WSOPs have seen winners originally from HK and Vietnam, all of them have spent a great deal of their life in the US.

Now this year you have a Laotian refugee beating off a Vietnamese refugee - though neither of them actually lives in Asia now, you can be sure their countrymen are going to sit up and take notice. More examples can be found in golfers Tiger Woods (half Thai) and Michelle Wie (Korean) - in both countries golf is in the midst of a huge boom.

I would like to see this year's WSOP stats compared with last year's though - I bet the numbers were significantly lower thanks to the UIGEA derailing the online poker boom.

**pokeraddict** · 18th July 2007, 08:49 PM

I would like to see this year's WSOP stats compared with last year's though - I bet the numbers were significantly lower thanks to the UIGEA derailing the online poker boom.

Do you mean the main event or all events? It seemed the side events drew pretty well still. I bet a lot of players that won ME entries took the $10,000 and went and bought into smaller events with it.

**spearmaster** · 19th July 2007, 08:02 AM

Everything - there's no doubt that the main event was smaller - but I'd like to see all the individual numbers as well. I would love to see how Harrah's deals with this.

**jetset** · 19th July 2007, 08:26 AM

The second was the release of official figures showing that a total of 6 358 players entered the 2007 WSOP Main Event, creating a prizepool of $59 784 954 from which 621 places will be paid, and each player who cashes will be guaranteed at least $20 320. First place will win $8 250 000 - well short of last year's $12 million.

2 415 fewer players entered the Main Event in 2007 than in 2006, probably due to the barring of online poker sponsorship registrations.

Day 1 numbers look like this:

* Day 1A: 1 287
* Day 1B: 1 545
* Day 1C: 1 743
* Day 1D: 1 783

WSOP HISTORY

A look back at recent World Series of Poker stats

The World Series of Poker has shown impressive growth since 2003 when Internet poker player Chris Moneymaker took the main event bracelet and the money. The organisers have released interesting historical statistics on the recent development of the world's largest poker event:

WSOP Main Event Prizepools, 2003-2007

2003 WSOP Main Event

Players: 839
Prizepool: $7 802 700
Players Paid: 63 (7.50 percent of the field)
Minimum Prize: $15 000
Number of Millionaires: 2
First Prize: Chris Moneymaker: $2.5 million

2004 WSOP Main Event

Players: 2 576
Prizepool: $24 224 400
Players Paid: 226 (8.77 percent of the field)
Minimum Prize: $10 000
Number of Millionaires: 5
First Prize: Greg Raymer: $5 million

2005 WSOP Main Event

Players: 5 619
Prizepool: $52 818 610
Players Paid: 560 (9.97 percent of the field)
Minimum Prize: $12 500
Number of Millionaires: 9
First Prize: Joe Hachem: $7.5 million

2006 WSOP Main Event

Players: 8 773
Prizepool: $82 512 162
Players Paid: 876 (9.99 percent of the field)
Minimum Prize: $10 616
Number of Millionaires: 12
First Prize: Jamie Gold: $12 million

2007 WSOP Main Event

Players: 6 358
Prizepool: $59 784 954
Players Paid: 621 (9.77 percent of the field)
Minimum Prize: $20 320
Number of Millionaires: 5
First Prize: $8 250 000

The 55 events played out in various poker variations and with a range of buy-ins this year attracted a total of 54 288 players, averaging close to 1 000 entrants per tournament.