Amongst widely popular games, poker is a relatively young source of entertainment. For example:
- Checkers is believed to be over 5,000 years old.
- Go was invented in China around 2,500 years ago.
- Chess is dated to emerge in the 15th century.
How old is poker? It’s impossible to pinpoint the exact origin of our favorite card game. Still, the consensus is that it materialized in a form similar to modern poker in the early part of the 19th century.
Its age, however, is insignificant because everything that made poker a worldwide phenomenon happened in, believe it or not, the last 50 years!
The history of modern poker games is tied to the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP)
The WSOP is the most popular and revered tournament brand among the vast majority of poker players. We’d bet our money that even some of your friends who don’t like playing poker have heard about this annual festival. It has not always been that way, though. Back in the day, in the 70s to be exact, the World Series of Poker was nothing like it is today, and the term “professional poker player” was unknown.
As you can read at the official site of the series, the first WSOP game in 1970 gathered almost no attention from the press or the public. It was an event held by and for a tiny group of passionate gamblers who played some high-stakes poker for several days, after which they voted for the best player. As a result, Johnny Moss ended up with the championship title.
The first official poker tournament, dubbed a WSOP Main Event, was a $5,000 freezeout, played the following year. Once again, Johnny Moss won and officially became the first consecutive Main Event WSOP winner (even though his first title was technically not won in a tournament). Three other players later repeated the same feat – Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, and Johnny Chan (given how big the Main Events are nowadays, that list won’t get longer anytime soon).
Since its early days, the WSOP festival started to grow gradually larger and larger, attracting not only professional poker players but also celebrities, entrepreneurs, musicians, and a whole bunch of amateurs who love to play poker. There is one factor, however, that helped WSOP grow like nothing and no one before or after.
In 2003, Chris Moneymaker changed live (and online) poker forever
Before his appearance at the WSOP Main Event final table, Chris was just an average accountant from Tennessee. His win of two and a half million dollars in the most prestigious poker event in the world changed his life and is believed to have started the biggest boom in the game’s history.
Chris Moneymaker was the embodiment of the poker dream. A young, likable man who not only won heaps of money but also overcame strong opposition in the form of titled rivals (he had to best multiple WSOP Bracelet Winners, namely Dan Harrington and Sammy Farha). Even Chris’s last name fits his story perfectly.
Thanks to the “moneymaker effect,” WSOP grew rapidly over the years and still is one of the most prestigious brands in the poker world. In 2022 alone, there were over 118 bracelet events in the US, plus 78 tournaments held online and another 15 in Europe. The last WSOP ME to date was the second largest in the festival’s history (over 600 poker tables were available at the venue in Las Vegas!). The tournament attracted 8,663 poker players who paid the buy-in of $10,000, lasted for 14 days(!), and awarded a new world champion, Espen Jørstad, with a stunning 10 million dollars for the win.
As big as the WSOP is, there are other live poker brands with a long history.
World Poker Tour is another brand we can’t omit
Founded in 2002, WPT is much younger than WSOP, but it quickly became one of the most popular poker tournament brands, especially in the US. A lot of that success is due to a big emphasis on broadcasting. Since the beginning of the World Poker Tour, poker gameplay has been part of TV shows along with the commentary of the professional cast of talents, analysis, and interviews, which elevated many poker pros to star status.
Undoubtedly, WPT expanded globally over 20 years of operation with impressive results. The branded show has been available globally in more than 150 countries and territories, and right now, we’re in the middle of its ninth season, with buy-ins for the Main Events ranging from $3,200 to $10,400.
The brand also decided to run smaller festivals. A current season of the series dubbed WPT Prime allows poker players to participate in smaller buy-in events (roughly $1,000-1,500) all over the world (the 2025 stops are scheduled in Australia, and Asia).
European Poker Tour & other PokerStars events
The third most important brand among the live tournaments is European Poker Tour. Founded in 2004 by poker pro John Duthie, EPT was the European result of Moneymaker’s win. It quickly turned out that the poker boom also reached the Old Continent, and the success of the tour was apparent.
As a result, a company you are most likely familiar with “PokerStars“ decided to acquire the brand in 2011. Since then, the EPT has been unambiguously associated with PS, and to this day, it’s one of its flagship events.
Over the years, the EPT encountered some hiccups along the way, but it stayed strong in 2024, and there is more to come in 2025. The buy-in to the Main Events of the current 17th season is set to €5,300, and the tour is more popular than ever, smashing consecutive attendance records.
Online poker is the bread and butter of most poker pros, but there is a lot of money in live poker
While online poker is the most cost-effective way to become a great player, there’s no doubt that live tournaments shouldn’t be totally neglected. Every winning poker player knows how tedious an online grind can be, so an occasional trip to a live event can be an excellent way to take a break from your everyday environment, especially given how attractive locations for live tournaments can be.
Moreover, if you are good enough to beat the online competition, you should do really well in a big field with a good ratio of poker professionals and recreational players.
If you do not feel like you’re a strong enough player to conquer live poker yet, it’s about time to become one, and we can help you with that. We’ve trained hundreds of excellent players, and you might be next. Join Smart Spin and take your game to the next level now with the first month free of charge!