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Make Money on the 2012 WSOP Main Event
Making money in an event like the 2012 WSOP’s Big Dance is certainly a long-shot or at least that’s what most players consider it to be, but it doesn’t have to be that. There are several ways one can make money in the WSOP event without ever reaching past the bubble. First thing’s first though: one has to earn a seat if he intends to make his money through poker.
With the proliferation of WSOP Main Event prop betting, one doesn’t even have to actually play in the event to make money on it. There are websites out there which accept wagers on various players in the shape of stakes as well as in the traditional sense and the options to bet on are numerous indeed. Anyway, given that if you’re here you’re probably a poker player, so let’s just focus on how you can earn a seat in the Big Dance. Online poker satellites have become massively popular and they are in fact the number one reason why the popularity of the WSOP saw such a huge explosion in 2004. Before Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 Main Event win, Main Event starting field consisted mainly of poker pros and a select few insiders who were definitely not amateurs either.
Since 1970, when there was no actual prize-pool to speak of, till 2003, when the winner took home $2.5 million, the prize-pool continued to increase, but the general public was still quite unaware of and altogether disinterested in the Series. In 2003 though, all that changed because Chris Moneymaker was an online qualifier: a member of the public, a true Average Joe who took on the pros and walked away with the prize. The following year, another online poker player, Greg Raymer rose to the top, and the money he took home was already significantly more. He took home a full $5 million, double Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 haul.
From that point on, prize-pools simply exploded. Joe Hachem took home $7.5 million the following year, after which, the online poker craze peaked in 2006, with Jamie Gold’s $12 million win.
Prizes would’ve probably continued to grow had it not been for the brakes put on the poker industry by the 2006 UIGEA. Although Main Event first prizes have declined, they have stayed firmly above the $8 million mark. These days, those who make the final table no longer have to rely on the prize-pool to make money though. Actually, there’s a lot more money to be made on the side. Online poker rooms offer fabulous prizes to qualifiers who win their seats through them and then go on to finish deep in the money. Those who make it to the final table will certainly be able to count on many more endorsement deals being offered up than they’ll know how to deal with. The whole system has turned into a money making machinery, in which the actual prize-pool of the main event is no longer an essential cog.
