The Week in Numbers - November 19

$210,379,285 - Total prize money paid out at WSOP 2015

With over one hundred thousand entries across 68 bracelet events, the massive prizefunds were not entirely unexpected. As reported last week, the US taxman will take a huge chunk of that, depending on which country the winners were from of course.

A detailed analysis of the winners-by-nation on PokerNews.com showed up some interesting numbers, with 14 different nationalities accounting for the bracelets from a total of 111 countries represented.

The USA, as usual, took the lion’s share of the coveted gold-ware with 44 of them – Canada and the UK were tied second with 4 each.

From the staggering -and record-breaking- prizepools available, North and Central America accounted for some 76% of the total winnings, with Europe grabbing 15.5% and the rest divided up amongst the other continents.

Within that 76%, a massive 92.2% went to players in the US ($146,638,121) with about 6% going to Canadians (just over $11million).

For Europe, the $34,064,489 total was divided up by the big four of UK, Germany, France and Italy. The UK pulled in a healthy 22.2% of the European earnings in Las Vegas, and Europe as a whole had the most individual countries who made $1million plus over the summer-long festival.

Scandinavian countries surprisingly failed to appear in the big earners this year, after last year’s Main Event winner Martin Jacobsen took down $10million and set high targets for his fellow Nordic pros.

Moving further afield, Russia are now apparently no longer in Europe and topped the Asia, Australia and Oceania sector with $3.3million and 45.8% of the regions winnings. Australia were the only other nation here to break the million $ barrier this time round.

Israel were the only big winners from the Middle East and Africa, although almost half of their winnings came from November Nine final tabler Ofer Zvi Stern, his fifth in the WSOP Main Event taking down $1,911,423.

The South American payouts were mostly won by Brazilians, a nation which has taken poker to its heart. Their $2,747,283 accounted for 2/3rds of the entire South American total, with Argentina making up a further 23.6%.

2200 - The player cap for the Norwegian Poker Championships

Today marked the 1st-ever legal Norwegian Championships to be held on home soil after visiting Dublin, London, and countries such as Sweden and Latvia in the past.

Geir Ove Neset of PokerListings Norway stated:

Although Norway has never before had legalised poker, it has still produced some excellent players over the years, with crowd-favourite Johnny Lodden playing this time around –one of some 1,300 players who have bought in to the 5,000 kroner ($575) Main Event, which is capped at 2200 players.

Neset explained:

Norwegian TV2 will be broadcasting live from Day 1A onwards on national TV.

In March this year 1,274 Norwegians traveled to Dublin to play the championships. The number has even been higher some years.

A 2013 change in government saw the ban on poker tournaments in Norway lifted, in part, but enough for the championships to return to their home nation.3 Norwegian champions will be crowned this week after a month-long series of regional qualifiers, with the final table of the main event being played on Tuesday.

According to reports “more than 1,500 players tried their luck and around 370 players made it through to this week’s championships,” which are organised by Global Poker Tours, who also organise the European Poker Tour (EPT) and other PokerStars events, with the help of the Norwegian NGO Blodkreftforeningen.

Blodkreftforeningen people with leukemia and carries out cancer research, and 5% of all buy-ins will be donated to the organisation, who have also encouraged players to donate blood, donors currently being in short supply in Norway.

$200,000 - Record-breaking buy-in for the Philippines Super-High Roller

The World Poker Tour (WPT) today announced the schedule for the Season 14 WPT National Philippines Festival at the luxurious Solaire Resort & Casino from January 2-8.

According to the organisers:

This huge tournament will likely see some of the richest and best-known faces from the Asian scene, including Macau’s big spenders. The Phillipines event is being co-hosted by the Poker King Club, whose President Winfred Yu said of the upcoming event:

Speculation as to whether Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan will make an appearance has begun, the US pro re-surfacing in recent months in both Macau and Manila, with rumours of his being staked by some very rich and influential ‘businessmen’ in the Macau gaming industry.

The festival will take place at the Solaire Resort & Casino in Parañaque and is the first time a $200,000 Super-High Roller has featured, although $100K events have been seen in the past.

WPT President and CEO Adam Pliska stated:

£11million - The amount invested by Sky Betting in their Yorkshire Base

The huge sum will see the creation of 200 new jobs in the technology and contact centre operations – bringing the total number of employees to over 900. Further sums will be invested in the launch of a commercial and software academy, a new Customer Hub and includes a £250,000 marketing campaign to lead the recruitment drive for the new workers.

Having moved from Harrogate to the major Yorkshire city of Leeds some 5 years ago, Richard Flint, the Chief Executive of Sky Betting & Gaming, announced, “With the business performing well we have decided that now is the time to significantly increase our investment in people and facilities. This is a vote of confidence not only in our own plans to make betting and gaming better but also in the health of the Yorkshire economy.”

Sky Betting and Gaming had 80% of their shares sold by the broadcasting giant last December to CVC Holdings, at a price of £600million, and who have since hired an additional 90 workers.

Describing the investment as “fantastic news for the city” Leeds City Councillor Judith Blake stated that “Leeds is delighted that Sky Betting & Gaming continues to invest job opportunities in the city and throughout Yorkshire.”

Sky themselves still control a 20% stake in the Sky Bet company which “includes major brands Sky Casino, Sky Bingo, Sky Vegas, Oddschecker and Sky Poker, plus a long-term agreement to allow CVC to continue using the Sky Bet name.”

5 - # of times the UKIPT has visited Edinburgh

Season 5 of the UKIPT has already visited London, Nottingham, Marbella, Bristol and the Isle of Man, but Edinburgh has long been a favourite destination for both the tour and its top players.

As the organisers state:

Last year’s event saw Dean Hutchison lift the title and £93,900 after defeating Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree heads-up and he is expected to be in the Edinburgh field to defend his title.

This year’s UKIPT Edinburgh Festival takes place at the Genting Club Casino at the Fountain Park Entertainment Centre with 13 tournaments scheduled. The £700+£70 buy-in Main Event kicks off tomorrow and runs through to November 22, players such as Vicente Delgado, Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody, and Ludovic Geilich and Dara O’Kearney on show during one of two starting flights.

Multiple side events are organised throughout the five-day festival with the £300+£30 buy-in Edinburgh Cup and the £2,000+£200 Eight Max High Roller being among the most eagerly anticipated.

$400million - Cost of a new Arizona casino

The Tohono O’odham Nation, a federally-recognised Native American tribe, had faced a ban on opening their casino if Capitol Hill House members had voted by a 2/3rds majority against it, but with no voters only gaining 263 of 434 votes, 25 of which were abstentions, the way is now clear for the tribe to open on December 20th as planned.

Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Edward Manuel said after the vote:

Had Capitol Hill voted against the casino -planned for the Glendale area - it would still have needed to pass a Senate vote and then be signed off by President Barack Obama.

A vote on the bill had previously been delayed, according to reports, and the state has challenged the current ruling, reportedly saying that:

19.75 million - # of NY residents who can't play DFS

The legal hearings have come about after New York’s Attorney General sent ‘cease-and-desist’ letters to the Daily Fantasy Sports giants last week, stating that their products “violated anti-gambling laws in the state.”

The two biggest DFS companies then sued the state of New York after receiving subsequent warnings about offering their contests to residents of the Empire State. According to filings, this affects some 1.1million accounts, New York State having almost 13% of the companies’ active users.

Both DraftKings and FanDuel had asked the state Supreme Court in Manhattan for an injunction and an immediate restraining order which would allow them to continue on the State while the judicial process takes its course, but these requests have been denied.

The State of New York argued in court this week that it has done nothing to ban or prevent the sites from doing business in New York, despite the Attorney Generals letters seeming to say otherwise. The letters have apparently already had a serious effect on deposits by state residents, hence the DFS sites’ injunction pleas.

The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday November 25th.

$72,000 - Amount lost on one bet on Ronda Rousey

A huge favourite to win, Rousey was beaten from pillar-to-post by Holly Holm, who proceeded to knock Rousey out with a stunning roundhouse to the head in round number 2 of their contest.

Given Rousey’s unbeaten record prior to the fight, the sports book numbers were hugely in her favour, some books offering as much as 17-1 against a Holm victory, although the numbers came down considerably closer to the fight. This of course aw a lot of money placed on an upset, and the bookies were out of luck this time around. For one unlucky punter the odds weren’t in his favour.

YIKES: Someone bet $72,000 at a @williamhillus sports book on Ronda Rousey to win on Saturday night for the chance to net $4,000.

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) November 16, 2015

A re-match seems likely, and again the Las Vegas books see Rousey as the favourite – which is hard to equate with the performance differential in their recent bout which saw Holm take control early on and hardly take a single significant shot herself.

The Nevada sports books can probably afford to take a big hit occasionally, having had a phenomenal 2014 with $3.9billion being bet with the ‘house’ taking a $227million profit overall. Although these figures were both all-time records, this year through August has seen another increase year-on-year of some 14.6%. They may need this if they continue to offer odds like these on Holm winning again!