PokerStars has set a new record for the largest ever online poker tournament series. This year’s Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP 2012) ran for two weeks, featuring 40 events of three tournaments each for a total of 120 events. Registration for the last event has just closed, resulting in a grand total of $65,332,179 worth of prizes for the series. There were a grand total of 526,154 entries, also a new record.
The previous records were set by PokerStars’ SCOOP 2010 when 461,936 entrants played for a total of $64,230,010 in prize money. It should be noted that SCOOP 2010 only had 33 different events, compared to this year’s 40 events.
Despite the larger number of events, this new record is impressive since it comes just one year after Black Friday and the forced exit of US players from PokerStars and other online poker sites. It is estimated that PokerStars lost nearly one third of their traffic when the US market was locked out by the US Department of Justice. This new record shows that international online poker is still thriving. Participants in this year’s SCOOP 2012 came from all over the world; over 150 different countries were represented.
Buy ins for SCOOP 2012 ranged from $5.50 to the $10,300 high roller main event. All series long the large guaranteed prize pool amounts were being exceeded with ease. In some tournaments the prize pool ended up being triple or even four times more than the original guaranteed amount.
Day 2 of the Main Event is currently running and in a few hours will reach the final tables of each of the three tournaments. Tune into FTR News later this evening to see the results and recap of the SCOOP 2012 Main Event.