PokerStars Schedules Tournament Opposite to The Super Bowl, Eats Millionaire Overlay

PokerStars flies a little too close to the sun as The Sunday Million goes against the biggest sports gambling event of the year and ends up having to give $1.2 million back to the poker community. 

Last year, PokerStars celebrated the Sunday Million Anniversary tournament on April 2nd, 2017, almost two months after the Super Bowl; over 55,800 players crushed the guarantee with a prize pool of over $11,000,000, making it a resounding success.

This year, PokerStars changed the date to Super Bowl Sunday, attracting "only" 43,975, creating a 1.2 million overlay, despite their desperate tweets.

"Come on, guys, be cool..."

The Sunday Million anniversary tournament is one of the most important poker tournaments of the year, a share of $10,000,000 is up for grabs for just $215. Who would pass on that value? 

Well, the lion's share of poker players who had money on the Philadelphia Eagles vs The New England Patriots Super Bowl game may have something to do with it.

According to The American Gaming Association, Americans would bet $4.76 billion during Super Bowl LII, or as Sports Illustrated puts it

"... roughly equivalent to the GDP of Barbados."

Now it's true, that estimate is from the United States where not only is Super Bowl Sunday a near-national holiday, but online poker is illegal on a federal level, however, Super Bowl Sunday is about as huge to sports bettors around the world as it is in the United States.

If I can talk about my own experience for a bit, I don't live in the United States, I could've played in this tournament, and I don't care about American Football 364 days of the year... but on Super Bowl Sunday I was at a local bar, watching the game, sweating bullets and making prop bets like any self-respecting degen.

But PokerStars loss is the poker community's gain! Their blunder just added $1.2 million to the economy, so how's that for a rakeback? 

...Not great, actually, but it's still better than those damn chests.