It’s too late for you to cash in on the more than $180 million dollars in prize money handed out by this year’s World Series of Poker, but for anyone who wants to follow the action online or catch the ESPN coverage starting July 22, here’s a primer on the richest event in “sports”.
The WSOP got its start in 1970 when poker player and casino entrepreneur Benny Binion hosted the event at his Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas. For the first decade or so, only a handful of entrants ponied up the $5,000 (soon to rise to $10k) for the Main Event tournament. Winners were a short list of the most talented and storied gamblers of the time – Johnny Moss, “Amarillo Slim” Preston, Doyle Brunson – most of whom just attended the tournament for the juicy cash games that took place after hours.
Although the tournament grew steadily through the ‘80s and ‘90s, it wasn’t until the turn of the century that competitive poker exploded into the American psyche. Online poker sites started running satellite tournaments to the WSOP Main Event. Winners of those tournaments received the $10,000 entry fee and travel money. Then, in 2003, a miracle happened when an amateur poker player and internet qualifier with the unlikely name Chris Moneymaker won the tournament, parlaying a $39 online tournament into $2.5 million dollars and poker history.
What followed was an unprecedented boom at the WSOP. Participation doubled in 2004, when another internet poker hobbyist – “Fossilman” Greg Raymer – took home the Main Event title, then rose dramatically in 2005. By 2006, almost 9,000 people entered the WSOP Main Event, resulting in a prize pool of over $80 million dollars; first place took home $12 million.
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2008.