Matt Stout, a Nevada poker pro, won two of the 18 Super Circuit events at WSOP.com this year, and made money in four others for total winnings of $122,389.
The amount won is not an anomaly, although unexpected in a time when the World Series of Poker live games were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We just didn’t know what to expect,” WSOP executive Seth Palansky said in the Las Vegas Sun. “Especially in Nevada, the depositing and withdrawing in the live casino, is really common. Players are really used to coming up with casino chips or money to deposit at the cage.”
When two of WSOP’s premier circuit events scheduled for mid-March were scuttled—one in Bally’s in Las Vegas and the other at Harrah’s in Atlantic City—the two combined and moved to WSOP.com, part of an Online Super Circuit Stout entered. Guarantees were modest as there was no precedent for this action.
But play eclipsed the wildest expectations. The 18 tournaments generated a total prize pool of $3.95 million, triple the $1.24 million guarantee. The $525 buy-in Main Event alone attracted 1,134 players for a $567,000 prize pool, making it the largest online circuit event in the seven-year history of WSOP.com, a site available only to players in Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.
“Outside of our first week of launching in New Jersey and Nevada, we’re also at our highest number of first-time depositors and registrants,” Palansky said. “We consider those two different things, but both those numbers are huge. We’re at seven-year highs. I think it’s from the live players who never wanted to play online now having no other choice.”
The site ramped up offerings beyond its series of tournaments, also adding extra cash-game tables and new poker variants. The day after the Super Circuit concluded, WSOP.com announced the Spring Online Championships, which run through May 3 with a boosted $4 million in guaranteed prize pools.
