What makes a poker tournament attractive? Is it the type of poker game being played? Is it the size of the field? Most players agree on one thing — it’s a combination of all things, but the prize pool plays the most important role.
The reasoning behind this is simple — people are attracted to events with more money, especially the ones that are not high-roller events. Although the majority of tournaments with the highest prize pool are actually high-roller and super high-roller ones, World Series Of Poker Main Events are still leading in the top five places of tournaments with the highest prize pool ever.
Therefore, let’s take a look at the five poker tournaments where the largest prize pool was created. Read on!
2006 WSOP Main Event
The 2006 WSOP Main Event is officially considered the event with the highest-ever prize pool, reaching a total of $82,512,162. What caused its popularity is the previous success of players such as Chris Moneymaker, which made many players believe that they too could win the highest prize in the Main Event. The 21st century began with poker being televised, and its popularity growing more than ever, which all escalated in the 2006 WSOP Main Event, which was won by Jamie Gold, who had an opportunity to earn $12,000,000.
2019 WSOP Main Event
The next largest tournament by prize pool is actually the latest WSOP Main Event. Although after 2006, there was a sort of dip when it came to the popularity of WSOP and poker in general, WSOP officials worked hard on slowly regaining the former glory. The total prize pool collected for this event was $80,548,600. In other words, it’s safe to say that that the 2020 WSOP Main Event could bring us the next biggest prize pool. The 2019 Main Event was won by Hossein Ensan for $10,000,000.
2018 WSOP Main Event
The third-largest prize pool was also created in a WSOP Main Event just a year ago. The players collected a total of $74,015,600, and the tournament was won by John Cynn for $8,800,000.
2010 WSOP Main Event
Now, the popularity trend would suggest that the next highest prize pool would be in the 2017 WSOP Main Event. However, the year 2010 was pretty good for the World Series of Poker, as the total amount of money that was collected was $68,799,059. Canadian Jonathan Duhamel won first prize and a total of $8,944,310.
2017 WSOP Main Event
Finally, the fifth largest tournament in terms of prize pool is the 2017 World Series of Poker Main Event. With a total of $67,877,400 collected for sharing, this year proved to be pretty successful for Scott Blumstein, who took the lion’s share of the pool with $8,150,000.
As you can see, all five places are occupied by WSOP Main Events. It is sixth place where we meet another type of event for the first time. Namely, the sixth place is occupied by another recent event that also took place in 2019 — Triton Super High Roller Series – Triton Million. The event collected a total of $64,531,000 and was won by Aaron Zang, who won a total of $23,100,000.
Although high-roller tournaments are inaccessible to the majority of people due to extremely high buy-in amounts, WSOP Main Event tournaments are more affordable. In fact, the sole popularity of WSOP sees thousands of poker professionals and enthusiasts apply and take part in this exciting event.