PokerStars Named "Best Online Poker Operator" for Fourth Consecutive Year

Giovanni Angioni Contributor

Feb 03, 2016 2 min read

On February 1, PokerStars was awarded the '2015 Poker Operator of the Year' title at the ninth edition of the International Gaming Awards (IGA), a ceremony held at the Savoy Hotel in London, United Kingdom. This is the fourth consecutive time that the largest online poker site leaves the awards ceremony with the title.

Commenting on the award, the vice president of Corporate Communications at Amaya and PokerStars Eric Hollreiser explained that the poker room is particularly proud that the independent judging panel decided to reward PokerStars for the efforts made by the poker room in 2015.

"We are grateful to have earned the award, and dedicate this to the millions of players and thousands of staff who have contributed to PokerStars' ongoing success," said Hollreiser.

According to PokerStars, there were several key themes behind PokerStars' success in 2015, including "the bigger, better, & richer online tournaments; and a comprehensive vision to grow the game of poker."

In a statement issued on February 2, the poker room highlighted the popularity of the Spin & Go as one of the key-factors that led to the title.

Launched back in October 2014, the lottery-style Spin & Go sit-and-go tournaments have created 13 million-dollar winners to date and quickly become one of the most popular format in the industry, with approximately 150 million real money games played on the global, shared-liquidity player pool.

During 2015 PokerStars managed to reach also other important milestones, as it hosted the biggest edition of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) ever with $66 million awarded to players across 70 events, and set a new Guinness World Record for the largest online poker tournament, when 253,698 players registered for a $0.01 event in October.

Discover all the Winners at the 2016 IGA

PokerStars was not the only company to leave the ceremony in London with their hands full as the awards distributed prizes to a total of twenty-five categories.

Here is the full list of IGA Winners: