The World Series of Poker brought a record number of entrants this year with 7,874 players, second only to its attendance numbers in 2006.
Up nine percent year over year, this Main Event compares only to the 2006 record of 8,773 players, reported the World Series of Poker. Last year, 7,221 participants entered the Main Event.
Of the entries by day, Day 1C had the largest entries of one sitting, coming in at 4,571; this is up seven percent from the prior year.
Day 1A was up 16 percent at 125, Day 1B was up 10 percent at 2,378. This freeze-out No Limit Texas Hold’em event is no re-entry.
The player makeup
The total number of male participants is 7,573, up nine percent from 2017; the total number of female participants is 301, up 6.6 percent from 2017.
2017, comparatively, had 6,949 male players and 272 female players.
The average age of a player in the Main Event is 41.23, slightly older than last year’s participants (40.59).
The Main Event, which kicked off July 2 and continues through July 14, has a $10,000 buy-in and a $74,015,600 prize pool. First-place prize sits at $8,800,000 and 1,182 places pay the most cashouts in event history.
This event has the highest value of chips in play in its history: 393,700,000. Players start at 50,000 in chips. The physical number of chips in play is 267,716. Each player starts with 34 individual poker chips.
Where players are from
Of the 7,874 entries, 5,758 were from the United States.
Here are the states with the most presence at the Main Event:
- California – 1,009
- Nevada – 626
- Florida – 519
- New York – 456
- Texas – 390
- New Jersey – 263
- Illinois – 215
- Massachusetts – 179
- Pennsylvania – 166
- Ohio – 145
The states with the lowest attendance were:
- Montana
- New Mexico
- Wyoming
- Delaware
- West Virginia
Of the total number of participants, players came from 88 countries.
- United States – 5,758
- Canada – 415
- United Kingdom – 350
- France – 136
- Brazil – 97
As far as international demographics go, the number of males were 2,052, and the number of female participants was 64 for a total of 2,116.
Overall WSOP
Thirteen events remain on the WSOP schedule. Of the 65 events so far, the events logged 109,463 entries and $213,425,143 in prize money.
In 2017, these numbers sat at 120,995 and $231,010,874.
This year’s number of entries and the money distributed are on track to be 49-year highs.
Here are the payouts for the final table:
- 1st: $8,800,000
- 2nd: $5,000,000
- 3rd: $3,750,000
- 4th: $2,825,000
- 5th: $2,150,000
- 6th: $1,800,000
- 7th: $1,500,000
- 8th: $1,250,000
- 9th: $1,000,000
There have also been some notable records from the online poker events:
First WSOP.com event: the largest field online tournament in the regulated US online marketplace (2,972), the largest online tournament held in Nevada
Second WSOP.com event: the first WSOP.com win outside Nevada the first online pot-limit Omaha event
Third WSOP.com event: largest no-limit hold’em championship
Fourth WSOP.com event: second player to win bracelet live and online, record field
