Home / Poker News September 2013 / WPT Moves its World Championship Event to Borgata
WPT Moves its World Championship Event to Borgata
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Wed, 2013-09-18 02:10
The ongoing Borgata Poker Open represented a great opportunity for WPT officials to make a major announcement concerning the venue and their $25k World Championship Event. Set for May, 2014, the event will be moved from the Bellagio, in Las Vegas, to Atlantic City, NJ.
According to WPT President Adam Pliska, the move to Atlantic City was a logical one for his side, after all, the Borgata was already the home of four of the five biggest WPT events.
Borgata is indeed a top-notch venue from just about every angle, with a superb reputation in regards to the running of world-class
poker tournaments. The services offered by the venue are indeed without an equal in the industry and the WPT can rightfully hope and expect that this new level of cooperation will further raise the profile of their operation and that of their World Championship event.
For 11 seasons, the WPT Series culminated in the World Championship event hosted by the Bellagio, but the 2007 edition of the tournament marked a peak in player attendance that couldn’t be equaled since. Back then, Carlos Mortensen won, besting a starting field of 639 players, and taking home the top prize of $3.97 million. Attendance numbers have been dropping since though. To put things into perspective: last season, only 146 players bellied up to the tables, and Chino Rheem was the one who walked away with the $1.15 million top prize.
If nothing else, last season’s poor showing made it obvious for WPT officials that the event was in bad need of a change of scenery.
Besides the actual change of venue, the WPT have announced a new sponsor for the event as well:
PartyPoker, the online poker operation which has been increasingly making its presence felt in the regulated US markets lately.
Sign up to PartyPoker and qualify online to the various WPT events for pocket change.
