The importance of the online medium for international poker has again been illustrated by the release of the latest World Series of Poker schedule, which sees the number of online events boosted to three.
The next edition of WSOP starts in May this year (see previous InfoPowa reports) with 74 bracelet events in all, and includes three online events:
No. 8: $333 buy-in WSOP.com Online No-Limit Hold’em ($333,333 guaranteed)
No. 61: $3,333 buy-in WSOP.com Online No-Limit Hold’em High Roller
No. 71: $1,000 buy-in WSOP.com Online No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Due to legal considerations, entrants in the online events will have to be present within the borders of Nevada, one of three US states that has regulated and licensed online poker, and they will have to open a WSOP.com player account.
Single online poker events have proved popular in the 2015 and 2016 iterations of WSOP, which has motivated the increase in the number on offer in 2017. The events will be supported by satellite competitions online in which players can win seats to the events for much lower buy-in investment.
Previous WSOP online events in 2015 and 2016 have attracted large entry lists, generating prize pools of $860,000 and $1.1 million respectively.
This year the three events will depart from the hybrid on-and-offline format and will play out fully online, with unlimited re-entry opportunities.