World Poker Views Blog

A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable to suggest that the upstart European Poker Tour (EPT) could one day surpass the then-wildly popular World Poker Tour (WPT) in terms of prestige and popularity, but that day may have finally come.

Last week, the $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship drew just 337 participants, down significantly from 545 of a year ago. Meanwhile, in San Remo, Italy, a €5,000 buy-in EPT event drew a massive field of 1,178. As such, the EPT first place prize nearly eclipsed the first place prize in the WPT Championship. Three years ago, most people would have probably felt comfortable laying 100:1 odds against this ever happening, and it nearly did this year! After all, the WPT Championship used to give nearly $4M to its winner.

So what happened that can explain these two poker tours heading in different directions? I would suggest there are two primary reasons:

Global Recession

The recession might not be affecting small stakes online poker games, but it is most certainly impacting ultra-high buy-in live tournaments. An event with a $25,000 buy-in will attract virtually zero fish during a severe recession. With no dead-money in the prize pool, many pros adequately bankrolled for the event might find it wise to pick a better spot for their money, such as the San Remo event, which has a buy-in of just $6,500.

Online Qualifiers

The biggest reason why the WPT Championship only got 337 players and EPT San Remo got 1,178 is because of online poker satellites. No online poker rooms run satellites to the $25,000 buy-in WPT event. Since the UIGEA was passed, U.S. casinos are no longer willing to take the legal risk of accepting registrations directly from online poker rooms for their tournaments. This is what caused the WSOP Main Event to drop from 9,000-some players to 6,000-some players in just one year.

However, online poker rooms do not have this issue in most parts of Europe, including Italy, which is why they were able to send hundreds of players to San Remo. Additionally, since packages to the San Remo event were priced in the ~$8,000 range, it wasn’t too terribly difficult for players to win (whereas winning a package to a $25,000 event would be much more difficult).

In short, the WPT is being killed right now by having too many tournaments with too large of buy-ins and a government that is hostile towards them accepting registrations from online poker rooms. To their credit, they are attempting to circumnavigate these issues by holding more events overseas. However, it’s probably too little too late. The EPT is the new WPT and that fact may likely never reverse.