With the 50th Anniversary World Series of Poker a month away, the team has revealed a wide range of added value including five free Main Event seats, the ability to buy-in online, and more.
Milling around the Rio during The World Series of Poker (WSOP) feels like walking into an asteroid field. Eardrums explode, blood vessels inflate to the size of innertubes, legs fly into fellatio flips.
If you’re a poker player, it’s both the greatest place on earth and the most unforgiving.
This year, the WSOP is celebrating 50-years in the business, and earlier today, my mailbox fattened with news of an array of additional bits and pieces of information you’ll want to hear about if you plan on attending.
Runny eggs and soldiers at the ready.
If you earn a living by robbing people, then you have until May 28th to figure out how to extract $1m in cash from a sealed unit located in the Rio rotunda. The WSOP has created the expensive piece of art to pay homage to the WSOP founder, Benny Binion.
Main Event giveaway
The WSOP is giving away five $10,000 WSOP Main Event seats in a draw on July 1. To be involved, swipe your Caesars Reward Card at the Rio Caesars Rewards desk. The first one is free. You have to earn the rest, up to a maximum of five, with an additional entry for every bracelet event you compete in.
$500 Hot Seat promotion
The Pavilion is the site of the next promotion with approx. 40-tables containing a ‘Hot Seat’, and throughout the entirety of the WSOP, officials will select one of these seats at random, hourly, and the winner receives $500 in cash.
Buy-in options
There are more ways than ever to buy-in to WSOP events.
Players can register for an online account (make sure you give yourself at least 72-hours for the account to click into gear). You can then syphon money to your online account to buy-in to WSOP events. Kiosks are available for printing of seat tickets.
You can also use a credit and debit card to buy into events carrying a $10,000 buy-in or less. There are fees attached to this mode of payment, including a $3 processing fee and a 2.95% transaction fee for credit cards with American Express charging 3.95% ($395 on the Main Event ticket, ouch!)
Online accounts are created using the Bravo Poker Live infrastructure, and you’ll need a Caesars Reward Card.
Follow this link for the nitty-gritty.
Automatic shuffle machines, Gorilla Gaming live action games, King’s Lounge
The WSOP will use 100 Scientific Games’ DeckMate2 automatic shuffle machines in the Amazon Room. The only other place you will find auto shufflers is in the Pavilion where Gorilla Gaming is providing 30 high-end tables for mid-stakes players. The new tables contain auto shufflers, phone chargers, and snazzy seats.
There are also plans for the return of the King’s Lounge, in partnership with Leon Tsoukernik. There will be 15 high stakes tables, but the schedule remains a secret for now.
Additional Live Events
Finally, the WSOP is adding several non-bracelet side events.
The WSOP begins with a $200 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament with $100 going towards a memorial fund for the former WSOP bracelet winner, Gavin Smith. The action is underway on May 28 at 6 pm.
There is a $150 buy-in Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Warm Up Tournament on the eve of the No-Limit Hold’em Ladies Championship. This one-day event takes place on Wed June 19 at 6 pm. The Seniors are getting additional Deep Stack events. If you’re 50+, you can compete in these events weekly every Wednesday beginning at 9 am. (Do people wake up that early?) There is also a Pot-Limit Omaha Deep Stack every Sunday at 5 pm from June 2 to July 14. The buy-in is $250.
The 50th Anniversary WSOP takes place May 28 to July 16.
