In quite the unprecedented move, Poker Stars opened its very own live poker room in Macau, China today. Not only is the first ever live poker room ever opened by an online poker room, but Poker Stars in doing so, is spreading the game of poker across the world.
Despite the surprising nature of this news, Poker Stars has been laying the groundwork for something such as this for quite some time now. With the Poker Stars sponsored European Poker Tour, and newly formed Asia Pacific Poker Tour and Latin American Poker Tour, they have been spreading poker through several continents, numerous countries, and millions of people. The EPT is in its fourth season, and has become wildly popular, with their recent Main Event in Monte Carlo paying out over $3 million for first. Poker Stars has made great efforts in the past few years to increase the popularity of poker, not just on their very own online poker room, but worldwide, with its three sponsored poker tours, and now their very first live poker room in Macau.
The poker room has seats for up to 160 players. Today, the grand opening was kicked off today with a charity tournament, with the proceeds going to victims of the recent earthquake in China. PokerStars is starting off their new poker room in a big way, with today’s charity tournament, and a solid tournament schedule starting up. In this include many satellites to the APPT Event in Macau, in September, which will be running regularly. The charity event also kicks off a tournament series that will be running through this weekend, the Macau Poker Cup.