WSOP Main Event Entry Down 27 Percent

As the World Series of Poker main event comes down to the final days, there has been great speculation as to why the tournament attendance has been down 27% since last year. The only answer that everyone can agree on is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Current WSOP numbers indicate that the main event has drawn 6,358 entrants this year, where as last year the record turn out was 8,773, which made the top prize 12 million dollars. Not to bad for one weeks work. The more than 8 million dollar pay out this year would also be worth the effort, but significantly less than last year due to the drop in over all attendance.

Last year, the Internet poker rooms sent almost 55% of the record total of players. This year, online poker rooms were forced to handle things differently. Not being able to make all of the arrangements for a qualifying player, they in turn, gave them the money to go to the tournament, pay for the buy in, and left the rest to the player. Due to this, many of the qualifiers in the online and satellite tournaments, had little to no representation in the World Series.

In industry murmurs there has been speculation that the potential excluded number of players could have been as much as 4000 or more. The experts believe that because the impact of the UIGEA incorporated Harrah's choice to exclude sponsored online poker seats, Had this not been the case, and the additional 4000 positions were filled at this years tournament, as was planned for, the total number of participants would have numbered into the 10 thousand range easily.

Even with the obvious impact of the UIGEA the World Series of Poker still drew an impressive number of total registrants, at 54,288, creating a cash pool of more than 159 million dollars. This included the record et for a non main event tournament, set on June 30, when more than 3,150 players joined the 1500 dollar HoldEm tournament. With this year's structure for pay outs, 621 players will or have reached the money bubble, receiving at least 20 thousand each. All and all the World Series of Poker 2007 will finish well, with great reflection on the alternatives for next year.