Sizing Up the PokerStars Players Championship, One of the World's Biggest Poker Tournaments

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Jan 07, 2019 3 min read Last updated Dec 19, 2019

With 320 entries into the PokerStars NL Holdem Players Championship courtesy of the PokerStars Platinum promotion, this tournament was always going to be the biggest $25,000 buy-in tournament in the history of the game. Among the 320, of course, were some lesser experienced poker players. That, combined with the facts there's no rake, it's the Bahamas, and there's a guaranteed $1,000,000 added to first, attracted a battalion of other players, 719 to be exact, to get to a total field of 1,039 entries.

For the longest time, the record in terms of entries into a $25,000 buy-in event stood at 639, courtesy of the 2007 WPT Championship event in the Bellagio. That record was crushed, with the PSPC now standing firmly atop the Top 10 biggest $25,000 buy-in events.

The Biggest $25,000 Poker Events in History

Since 2010, PokerStars has organized a $25,000 event every year at the PCA. Here are the numbers for the main $25,000 event at the PCA since its inception:

One of the Biggest Prize Pools Outside of the WSOP

The list with the biggest events in the world, looking at the total prize pool, is dominated by the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. 2006's Main Event, won by Jamie Gold for $12,000,000, stands out as the biggest of them all with a total prize pool of $82,512,162 resulting from a field of 8,773 players.

After a long list of WSOP events, the €1,000,000 buy-in The Big One for One Drop in 2016 comes next in terms of prize pool. Next up comes the PSPC. Here's a look at the Top 25:

The Biggest Events in the History of the Game Looking at the Total Prize Pool

^{Data courtesy of TheHendonmob.com}

_{The Stars Group owns a majority share in iBus Media.}

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