the legacy that Elvis left human civilization, the current economic problems have left people to honor the King without making a pilgrimage to his castle to see the throne he died upon. For the most part, tourist destinations have been pretty hard hit by a global recession that sees people opting for “staycations” within the confines of their own homes, rather than spend money for expensive outings. With that said, poker players seem to be willing to do the travel that the average engineer or accountant is currently avoiding, and the World Series of Poker seems to be recession proof.
Now that the World Series of Poker has played its final hand, and crowned a man-child as the WSOP Main Event Champion, the numbers have come in on regarding how well the entire season has gone for them. Unlike the news other vacation destinations and events have had to endure, their report card is a good one.
Poker Players taking a little Texas Hold’em oriented vacation and Poker Pros in search of WSOP gold, pushed World Series of Poker participation beyond the 2009 mark. 60,875 people took the pilgrimage to Las Vegas and paid buy-ins to play in pokers most prestigious series of tournaments. This is 2000 more people than who attended in the previous year. This is obviously good news, but even economy driven negatives are hiding in the otherwise rosy picture, like a aphids on a bloom or that mole on Cindy Crawford’s face (seriously, shouldn’t she have done something about that by now?) The Main Event and other high buy-in tournaments had a drop in participation, while the lower buy-in tourneys experienced a rush. While this might be a minor cause of concern for the event administrators, this is probably music to the ears of most poker pros. For the most part, they don’t like amateurs mucking up the works when the big prizes are on the line. Of course in the Main Event, 6000 to 1 odds are not very good, and a 21 year old player from economically depressed Michigan still emerged as the Texas Hold’em King.
WSOP officials are approaching the whole thing with cautious optimism. “We expect to find a way to increase participation,” World Series of Poker spokesman Seth Palansky said. “But I don’t think you’ll see the record growth you have since 2000.”
