The WPT is wasting no time expanding its online series and earning that "W." They were the first of the big series to move online with their first trial run taking place back in May. And so they were well established when the WSOP Online went up against the WPT World Online Championships in August/September.
Then they beat WSOP on their own turf. They got Natural8 to sign up to host the WPT Asia Online. Natural8 is one of GGPoker’s biggest skins and therefore was a co-host of the WSOP Online.
And now the WPT has got into India ahead of their rival with the launch of the WPT Online India, Powered by Adda52.
Adam Pliska, CEO of the World Poker Tour told the press: “The WPT Online venture continues to grow as part of our overall online strategy which we have found effective across the global market. This series comes on the heels of our successful WPT Online series in other parts of the world and we are pleased to be working with Adda52 come November.”
Autumn heats up
WPT Online India Main Event will kick off on the 5th November 2020 and run until the 22nd.
The first of ten Main Event flights will start on the 11th of November. The ME buy-in will be ₹11,000 (~$150) with a guaranteed prize pool of ₹25 million ($342k).
There will be 29 higher stakes events with buy-ins of up to ₹55,000 (about 750 bucks). These will make up the MEGA Series. Then there will be a whopping 125 event MINI Series to go with that.
Each of the two series will have separate leaderboards with cash prizes.
A huge coup
There is no vaccine for the coronavirus forthcoming as yet. So the WPT has quickly turned itself from a predominantly live series of tournaments into a massive worldwide online franchise.
India is a big chip in that game.
The largest democracy on earth has been on the verge of becoming a poker hotspot for years now. Since a major court ruling that poker is a game of skill, and therefore legal at the national level, the expectation is that regulation and legalization will soon follow at the state level.
Several states allow online poker while others do not enforce the laws against online gamblers. Gambling on skill games like rummy and teen patti (a local version of three card brag) is widespread in most of India, regardless of what the states in question say.
So sites like Adda52 have a solid customer base to work with already. And it’s a growth market.
“Adda52 and the growing Indian player base make for a perfect combination to bring WPT Online brand to the Asia-Pacific region,” Danny McDonagh, Live Events Specialist for the World Poker Tour said. He then added that, “following our record-breaking success with live WPT India events, we expect to exceed even our own expectations for the upcoming series.”
This series gets the WPT into a huge new market for them. It also give's Adda52 enormous international publicity.
Manish J. Adnani, the Business Head for Poker of Delta Corp — Adda52’s parent company, said, “We expect to continue setting higher standards for online poker in the Indian Sub-continent, rollout a memorable experience on Adda52.com and offer the Indian players a platform to achieve glory at the world stage.”
It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Except the WSOP.
