[Button Potato]

Online Satellite Winners 'Most Likely Not' Accepted For 2007 WSOP

October 14, 2006
Haley Hintze

The online-satellite pipeline to the Main Event at the WSOP found itself clogged in a major way this past week, as word leaked out from Harrah's Entertainment, owners of the World Series of Poker, that they will no longer accept third-party registrations on behalf of player who won their seats through satellites on online sites. A large majority of the 8,773 players who participated in the 2006 Main Event qualified in this manner, and in combination with the passing of the UIGEA and several sites' withdrawal from the U.S. market, all but ensures that the WSOP will have significantly smaller participation numbers in 2007.

One of the first public mentions of the change was by Phil Gordon, who talked about the communication on his "The Poker Edge" program, co-hosted with Andrew Feldman on ESPN Radio. Gordon, one of the celebrity endorsers for Full Tilt Poker, suggested that the change will eliminate perhaps 75% of the Main Event entrants, predicting that 2,200 players might be a reasonable expectation for 2007. That said, the WSOP change Gordon referred to seems largely unconnected to a mailing from Full Tilt this week telling winners of recent online qualifiers that if the event the player qualified for was based in the U.S., the player would need to accept a cash-equivalent deposit into his or her account, or attend a non-U.S. event instead, with events in Niagara Falls (Canada) and Dublin (Ireland) among those mentioned. The Full Tilt mailing inferred that the larger gaming changes caused by the pending passage of the UIGEA were responsible for the move.

The new Harrah's policy remains unofficial as of this writing, and the initial word went out to only the largest sites, rather than all those that had sent online qualifiers to the WSOP in 2006. However, Pokernews.com can confirm that the new rules will become official in the near future. Gary Thompson, Director of the World Series of Poker, told us via e-mail "While we're still reviewing registration requirements, it's likely we will accept third-party registrations from entities such as charitable and civic organizations and offline tribal and commercial casinos in the U.S. and abroad with whom we have licensing agreements to conduct WSOP satellites, as well as entities for which we have sponsorship agreements that run contests for their customers. We most likely will not be accepting third-party registrations from other entities."

Reaction from online sites was mixed. The site sending the most players to the WSOP for the last several years, Poker Stars, did not have a reply in time for inclusion in this report. Bodog Founder and CEO Calvin Ayre acknowledged the change but chose to accentuate the positive, offering this: "No matter what, players will continue to hone their poker skills at online sites such as Bodog.com. To this end, we will continue to develop world champion poker players, such as Team Bodog s 2006 WSOP winner Jamie Gold, who will continue to dominate land-based poker tournaments."

Word began to trickle down to the smaller sites as well, such as Australia-based Poker.com, which sent 18 of its own players to the 2006 Main Event, then picked up the sponsorship tab for three more Main Event qualifiers from an unconnected site, Check n Raise Poker, when that site ran into cash-flow difficulties and defaulted on its promise to send those qualifiers to the WSOP. Poker.com's Head of Affiliate Marketing, Paul Cherry, opined that there still might be workarounds for sending players to the WSOP. "I can't see it being a real problem," said Cherry, "it just means the player will have to fill out the pre-registration forms and submit them him/herself. Surely we can still do the wire for them. If not, we just give the money to the player and they can pay."

Still, even the optimistic Cherry conceded that a new era for the WSOP is at hand. "There is one thing for certain; the 2006 World Series of Poker was the biggest poker tournament you will see for a long time."

[kayos]

Wow!!!??!?!?!? That is huge. I am really surprised that Harrahs does not care about the extra entry fees.

[joshuadalton]

Can't they still run tourneys where that have the $$ for the WSOP entry? They could give you the cash, and you use that to enter. Obviously if it was done this way, the site couldn't force you to use the money to enter, but I still think that there will be ways around it. Don't you?

[A-Ro]

Well, if Full Tilt gives the option of getting the 10K plus deposited in their account these people can still cash that out and use it as the buy-in at the Main Event if they wish.

[Diablo_Rojos]

I don't think anything really will change. If they the sites do cut a check or deposite 10K in an account, maybe 30% of the winners will blow it before the WSOP. So I highly doubt that any real changes in the number of players at next years WSOP.
So I say look for the "nod nod wink wink 10k + 2k bonus tourney not for WSOP " Tournement on P* and Bodog.

Do I smell a prob bet??

[i run 8s]

This is similar to the posts 10 days ago about the complete death of online poker within x number of days. Looks like I'll be playing online for some time to come. I'll give odds that 2007 wsop players come from the internet at a rate close to the 2006 wsop

[Slim7]

The whole thing just sucks!!! Even if it all works out..I'm tired of overpaid, underworked idiots deciding what's good for me.

[hachkc]

Potentially, they could give you the buyin for the WSOP and then some add'l bonus ($$$) if you do actually play in the ME with their logo'd accessories.

[Poboy]

Originally Posted by joshuadalton

Can't they still run tourneys where that have the $$ for the WSOP entry? They could give you the cash, and you use that to enter. Obviously if it was done this way, the site couldn't force you to use the money to enter, but I still think that there will be ways around it. Don't you?

The sites want you at the tournament wearing their gear so other people play there. Since other people can't play there anymore, the site has little incentive to just host essentially 10K top prize tourneys

[PocketRocket]

Thank you for seeing the trees in spite of the proverbial forest. $10K is a cheap price for a human billboard on a nationally televised event, as anyone who has ever bought TV commercial time will tell you. And, if perchance, they end up with another Chris Moneymaker, then they've hit a home run with their investment.

Originally Posted by Poboy

The sites want you at the tournament wearing their gear so other people play there. Since other people can't play there anymore, the site has little incentive to just host essentially 10K top prize tourneys