888 Sponsors the WSOP


888 Sponsors the WSOP

888 Sponsors the WSOP
The World Series of Poker, or WSOP for short, is one of the biggest events in the casino-goer’s calendar. As the largest, richest and most prestigious gambling event in the world, the WSOP is a big thing – in 2014 alone the WSOP had more than 82,000 entrants from 110 different countries, and handed out more than $227 million in prize money. The prize last year, a whopping $7,683,346, went to Joe McKeehen in the final round. With more than $2 billion handed out in prize money going back 1970, there is very little doubt that the WSOP is one serious tournament.

So with that in mind, it’s unsurprising that 888poker has decided to continue sponsoring the WSOP in 2016. 888poker have said themselves that they’ve never been shy about big partnership deals, and it honestly doesn’t get any bigger than this. This continued sponsorship is designed to “open the door” to players from outside the USA, Canada, France and Italy – something which is always welcome at major sporting events. After all, the more people who enter, the more prize money’s left at the end of the day.

Interestingly, this sponsorship deal comes with a couple of terms which will be extremely lucrative for Cassava Enterprises, the parent company behind 888poker. Not only will 888poker receive massive, broad exposure during the event, including during the live tournament coverage on ESPN, but 888poker now has exclusive rights to run the official WSOP satellites online.

This means that as with last year’s tournament, you can qualify for the WSOP 2016 though the 888poker site – in fact, the exclusive online qualifiers have already opened.

The last thing to note with this newly renewed sponsorship deal is that for the first time, there is a special WSOP Gold Bracelet event taking place this year, officially labelled Event #54 but known as Crazy Eights, which comes with a $888 buy-in. This 8-Handed No Limit Hold’em comes with a guaranteed $888,888 jackpot for the winner, making it officially the best piece of marketing that we’ve seen in a long time.

Senior Vice President & Head of B2C at 888, Itai Pazner, has commented on the deal, reiterating the point about opening the tournament up to a wider player base during the WSOP 2016.

“The World Series of Poker is the pinnacle of the poker calendar and during the Main Event the eyes of the poker world are on the action in Las Vegas. In 2015 we made dreams come true for Tommy Yates and renewing our partnership will help to get more 888 players from all over the world to the WSOP again this year. The sponsorship is fantastic for the 888poker brand, for 888 players, and for the poker community more generally".