WELCOME

These days it seems that you can't turn on the television without seeing poker being played. There are now an enormous number of poker tournaments all over the world but the granddaddy of them all is the World Series of Poker. The WSOP is almost single handedly responsible for the massive popularity of poker these days. The event started out as a competition amongst a small group of the best players in world, but it has now grown to be a huge event. Today the World Series of Poker routinely draws thousands of competitors every year.

Officially the World Series of Poker began with the competition in 1970 but the history of the event actually goes back much further than that. In 1949 gambler Nick Dandolos asked Horseshoe casino owner Benny Binion to arrange a poker marathon with the best player in the world Johnny Moss. Recognizing the opportunity for some publicity for his casino Binion agreed provided the event was played in public. The result was a marathon during which the two men played every from of poker you could think of over a five month period. Ultimately Moss won and the two players went their separate ways. However Binion noticed the surprising public interest in the marathon and realized that poker have a following of fans.

In 1970 Binion decided it was time to make poker a spectator event and he arranged a tournament with the best six players in the world. This was the first official World Series of Poker. Ultimately Johnny Moss won this event as well, the winner being decided by a vote of the competitors. The next year the winner was determined by an elimination tournament and Moss won that as well. The event really took off in 1972 when Thomas Preston won the tournament and then became a popular figure on the talk show circuit, this attracted a much larger audience to the event.

The World Series of Poker grew slowly through the rest of the seventies and into the eighties, with the number of entrants rising to 52 in 1982. However the decision to begin preliminary satellite tournaments and offer a lower buy in caused the number of competitors to soar. At the 1987 event there were more than two thousand competitors at the tournament.

The popularity of the World Series of poker has continued to climb the event now regularly draws several thousand participants every year. One of the reasons for this growth has been that there are now over fifty competitions featuring a variety of different games every year. The other area of growth for the event has been the result of television coverage, the event now receives massive media exposure and this has helped to make the World Series of Poker more popular than ever.