Leading online poker site PokerStars.com has announced that it smashed the world record last week for the number of players participating in a virtual tournament after more than doubling its previous landmark.
One of the world’s largest online poker sites, the Isle Of Man-licensed domain has set similar bests twice before beginning with 35,000 players in December of 2008 before topping this with 65,000 participants from 155 nations in July of last year.
PokerStars.com’s latest attempt took place on December 27 and was sanctioned by the Guinness Book Of World Records with a total prize pool of $300,000. The site revealed that 149,196 players paid a one-dollar buy-in for the opportunity to compete for a top prize of $50,000 with the top 30,000 players receiving a cash reward.
PokerStars.com announced that its event took just under six hours to complete and was eventually won by online competitor ‘oskar69’ while ‘Bommel222’ took second for $30,000.
“The kicker is that the tournament was finished in under six hours as the $300,000 guarantee from PokerStars.com created a $50,000 first prize thanks to the massive overlay,” read a statement from PokerStars.com.
“We're sure ‘oskar69’ is happy about the return on investment from the win today as no deal was reached and the entire $50,000 was awarded for besting this massive field.
“Congratulations to ‘oskar69’ and all of the 30,000 players who cashed this evening and thank you for setting yet another Guinness Book Of World Records record here at PokerStars.com.”
Third spot and its $20,000 cash prize went to online competitor ‘TLWPB’ while ‘willis59’ finished in fourth for $10,000 followed by ‘kruglay’ in fifth for $8,000. In sixth, ‘madmick62’ is now richer to the tune of $6,500 while ‘DS1982’ walked away with $5,250 for seventh followed by ‘denmil53’ in eighth for $4,000 and ‘bigsnapper7’ in ninth for $3,000.
