The dust stirred up by the thousands of players who traipsed through the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino the last two months has cleared, and now it's time to look at some of the figures that came out of the 38th
World Series of Poker. With 55 events, the 2007 version was the most ambitious one yet, attracting more entrants than ever before.
The folks at the cashier's booth greeted 54,281 entrants this year, which is 5,925 more than the 46 events last year drew. Despite this, there wasn't much difference in the total prize pool. This year's was $159,492,119; last year's was $159,018,925.
Last year, each event averaged 1,051 players; this year, that average was 986.
As far as the numbers are concerned, the biggest difference between this year and last year was the number of entrants who played in the main event. The 2007
WSOP champion, Jerry Yang, was one of 6,358 players who vied for a share of what will be the largest live poker tournament prize pool of the year.
Last year, Jamie Gold emerged on top of a field of 8,773 players, a 2,415-player difference, which shows just how much the crackdown of online poker is affecting the U.S. player pool. This not only translated to a notable prize-pool difference ($59,784,954 compared to $82,512,162), but also affected Harrah's bottom line. Harrah's charges $600 a person to play in the main event ($9,400 goes to the prize pool), so that means Harrah's made about $1.5 million less on the main event than it did last year.
But, don't feel too bad for Harrah's. While main event numbers dropped, most of the preliminary events saw an increase in numbers of entrants. For example, event No. 3, $1,500 no-limit hold'em, attracted 2,998 players, an increase of 222 players from 2006.
The popularity of poker among women was apparent this year. The 2007 ladies world championship had 1,286 entrants, which was 158 more players than last year.
Although it's possible to buy in for all of the events, it would be impossible to play in all of them because so many are packed into the schedule (unless you plan on getting knocked out of every event early). Even so, it would have cost a player $194,500 to play in all of them. Last year, it would have cost $162,500.
The 39th version of the
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