2018 WSOP Breaks All Records

Records are there to be broken, but with all the gloom and doom-mongers in the poker world telling us that there’s no money to be made and the game is dying you might be forgiven for expecting the World Series of Poker to reflect such a negative view… but not a bit of it!

A staggering $266,889,193 was handed out on prizemoney among the lucky cashers – 18,105 of them to be exact from almost 124,000 entries over the 7-week long, 78 event series.

That’s now 6 years in a row the numbers have risen, with players descending on Vegas from 104 different nations – the host USA of course by far the biggest provider of poker-playing bodies, accounting for 89,553, near neighbours Canada a distant second with just over 5,000 and old cousins the UK in third spot with 4500 or so.

As usual, however, female participation failed to break even the 5% barrier, 5,717 (that’s a meagre 4.86%) - so a lot to do in that respect to make things more attractive for around half the world’s population!

The prizemoney may have broken the record for ‘the most money awarded at a single poker series… the first time the WSOP has eclipsed the quarter billion dollar mark’, but where did it all go?

Millionaire Makers

The WSOP stats indicate that ‘28 players that earned $1 million or more this year, which is the most ever at one WSOP’ which obviously includes all nine Main Event final tablists – John Cynn at the top with his incredible $8.8million victory and Antoine Labat scoring $1million for his 9th spot…

 … but don’t forget the taxman also did quite nicely out of the whole affair!

Justin Bonomo was the single biggest winner of the series, his official $10million Big One for One Drop victory capping an incredible 6-month run, but even he will struggle to come close to the $2,999,643,394 in prize money the 49 year history of the WSOP has handed out!

For lovers of numbers and stats, the WSOP’s data release will be pleasant reading, and WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart was clearly a happy man, stating:

“The 2018 World Series of Poker was another big success and it’s thanks to the loyal players that make it out to Las Vegas every summer”.