A controversy has already formed in the opening week of the 2015 World Series of Poker. Last Sunday night the finalized numbers of the Colossus event were announced. An outstanding 22,374 entrants entered into the $565 event, which create an $11,187,000 prize pool. This is the largest pool ever for any poker tournament costing under $5000 to enter. World records have been broken, and every expectation was exceeded. However, that didn’t stop people from being absolutely furious when it was announced exactly how much of the $11 million would be going to the first place winner. It turns out that only $638,800 of the prize pool will be given to the first place winner. There is a large amount of uproar from players who think that the prize number should be much higher than that.
Communication Failure
When it became clear that a $10 million marketing play for first place was not going to cut it for the main event, WSOP officials changed their minds decisively. They instead decided to reward a larger amount of players with a payout that was flatter in structure. They used the same type of methodology for Colossus, which follows the ratio that awards the player who wins first place with a return that is 1000X the investment that they make into the poker game. However, the communication failure came when the officials completely forgot to inform anyone, which left all the players feeling cheated.
The Right Call?
Once people calm down they will begin to realize that WSOP officials made the correct decision. Remko Rinekma who is a very well respected poker game reporter reported that because of the structure, less experienced poker players were getting the chance to win some money; something that he approved of. Ben Warrington who was a player at Colossus commented that it seemed like half the players had won some amount of money from the game. Having a large amount of players getting a chunk of the $11 million winnings equates to more players being satisfied with WSOP.
Clarification Needed
Even if the payout percentages had been communicated properly during the days before the event, more care was needed in order to clarify the payouts based on the field size. On top of this, there needed to be some clarification as to why the golden ratio only applies to a single buy-in and not all of the entry fees that are incurred by the large player base, especially as each player can enter as many as four times.
The Second Controversy
Many of the poker players at the WSOP are also upset about another controversy. The first place winnings are $638,000, and Caesars, which is the venue, is earning twice that amount from the event. It may seem as though the player complaints have some merit, as it doesn’t seem fair as to why the house makes more money than the winner of the game, especially twice as much. However, the WSOP officials respond that there is neither correlation nor causation in the complaints. Rakes are separate from winnings, and the amount of payout has no affect on the amount of winnings.
The Shame of Having a Controversy
It is unfortunate that a controversy has arisen over the payout structure, as a historic event in poker history has now been tainted by it. Many poker game experts outside of the game agree that the officials of WSOP made the right call in flattening out the payout structure, however they made their error in not foreseeing the fallout that would occur by not communicating properly with players.