WSOP.com Real-Money Site Open for Business in Nevada
The World Series of Poker launched its long-awaited real-money online poker room at 9:19 a.m. PT on Thursday, joining Ultimate Poker as the only two running operators in Nevada's real-money market. WSOP.com, which is powered by the software of 888 Holdings, will be available to Nevada residents and the nearly 40 million annual visitors to the state.
“This is a historic moment for our company,”Caesars Interactive Entertainment CEO Mitch Garber said this week. “A state-of-the-art poker offering from one of the most established and regulated operators in the United States, is finally here. We have taken the 43-year-old World Series of Poker brand and combined it with the Caesars Entertainment portfolio of assets to provide consumers with what we believe will be an unrivaled poker offering to satisfy today’s technologically savvy consumer. We will bridge land-based and online gaming in ways that have never been seen before.”
WSOP.com will initially operate in a Field Trial stage of development (a period in which CIE and the Nevada regulatory authorities will closely monitor all facets of the operation). The real-money site will be available for both PC and Mac Users, offering a wide variety of games and stakes, including daily $100 and $25 freerolls for players of all levels.
The site will also offer satellites into land-based WSOP events including the $10,000 WSOP Main Event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. WSOP.com will kick off its unique offering with an opportunity for players to win their way to the WSOP Europe (WSOPE) in Paris, France, with a €10,000 WSOPE Main Event seat and $3,000 in spending money up for grabs.
“As a long-standing World Series of Poker employee it is gratifying to see this day upon us,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “Our players have played an important part in the success of the World Series of Poker the past decade, and we will work very hard to cultivate a strong poker community and positively represent the game of poker in the online world as we have in the land-based environment.”
In October, the site will host the WSOP.com Online Championships, a series of nine tournaments with $500,000 in added money. Nine different winners from those events will get the opportunity to participate in the first-ever “Online Nine," which will coincide with the November Nine on Nov. 4-5, 2013.
For more on the launch of WSOP.com, be sure to check out this week's PokerNews Podcast featuring WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. And if you're in Nevada, let us know what you think about the new site in the comments section below!
For some help with online poker terminology before you start your first session, check out the video below provided by WSOP.com:
Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
