Rio Casino Hosts World Series of Poker Main Event
The World Series of Poker Main Event is underway with the coming of the holiday weekend, with the tournament in its home of recent years, the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. While the exact count of entrants won't be tabulated until the fourth opening stage on Monday begins, it appears that around 6000 players will be gambling on a shot for a multi-million dollar payout.The number of participants in the Main Event has declined since the US government declared war on playing the most American of sports online. Over 8700 showed up to take their chances in 2006, but many practiced their craft on the Internet.
Still, despite recession, governmental harassment, and soulless corporate abduction of an institution, the WSOP carries on, and is poised to set a record for most total entries in all events, which now number 57.
The fortieth anniversary of the great poker showdown has many old hands recalling when Benny Binion first started the affair at his casino, the Horseshoe. Binion invited six of the world's best players to face off.
The event built, until, after Benny's death, Harrah's bought the Horseshoe solely for the purpose of acquiring the WSOP, selling off the casino and hotel but retaining the tournament and relocating it at the Rio.
Where Binion ran the WSOP without taking a cut, showing both a love for the game and a promoter's keen use of publicity for his casino, Harrah's has adopted the current corporate mentality in Vegas to drain the blood from anything that moves, taking a ten percent cut for the house.
Famed champion Johnny Chan thinks corporate greed has hurt the WSOP, just like it has led Las Vegas into a recession by diversifying from the product Vegas could always count on, gambling.
"I don't want the big corporation just taking advantage of it (poker)," Chan told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "The tournament got bigger and they got greedy and they wanted to take more money out."
At least players are still taking money out, as well. Last year's winner, Peter Eastgate, cleared a cool $9.2 million. This year's prize may be less, but the champion will probably be too busy counting his cash to complain.
