	Home Page
CASINO GAMES
	Blackjack
	Roulette
	Slots
	Bacarrat
	Keno
	Craps
	Video Poker
POKER
	Texas Hold 'Em
	Hand rankings
	Poker terms A-K
	Poker terms L-Z
LOTTERIES
	UK and Euro
SPORTS BETTING
	Football
	Golf
	Cricket
	Rugby
BOOKMAKERS
	Online Betting
	Exchanges
	Spread Betting
HORSE RACING
	UK racing

POKER SUPPLIES

WINNING SUPPLIES

The World Series of Poker

The World Series of Poker, the unofficial world championship of poker, made its debut in 1970. Benny Binion, a casino owner, got together some of the best and most well known poker players of the time in a competition to decide who was the best poker player, the world champion.

At this time the format was not like todays (freezeout - who holds all the chips at the end is the winner) but was decided by a popular vote. The freezeout format was introduced the following year in 1971 when there were a total of 7 entries!

The tournament was always held at Binions Horseshoe and, whilst the buy-in remained very high, only professional players took part.

It wasn't until the 1980s that satellite tournaments with smaller buy-ins were introduced and the field started to increase rapidly year-on-year. From 52 in 1982 to 2,141 in 1987.

With the boom in online poker in the late 1990s the field has swelled to over 8,000 each year for the main event played - No limit texas holdem. With a buy in of 10,000 dollars per person that puts the total prize fund at over 80 million dollars, with an estimated first prize of around 11 million for the outright winner.

Additionally there are 44 other events played at the World Series in 2006 during the 45 days of poker action in Las Vegas. The winner of each event wins a World Series of Poker bracelet.

Past winners of the main event are listed below:

1970 - Johnny Moss
1971 - Johnny Moss
1972 - Amarillo Slim Preston
1973 - Puggy Pearson
1974 - Johnny Moss
1975 - Sailor Roberts
1976 - Doyle Brunson
1977 - Doyle Brunson
1978 - Bobby Baldwin
1979 - Hal Fowler
1980 - Stu Ungar
1981 - Stu Ungar
1982 - Jack Straus
1983 - Tom McEvoy
1984 - Jack Keller
1985 - Bill Smith
1986 - Berry Johnston
1987 - Johnny Chan
1988 - Johnny Chan
1989 - Phil Hellmuth Jr.
1990 - Mansour Matloubi
1991 - Brad Daugherty
1992 - Hamid Datsmalchi
1993 - Jim Bechtel
1994 - Russ Hamilton
1995 - Dan Harrington
1996 - Huck Seed
1997 - Stu Ungar
1998 - Scotty Nguyen
1999 - Noel Furlong
2000 - Chris Ferguson
2001 - Carlos Mortensen
2002 - Robert Varkonyi
2003 - Chris Moneymaker
2004 - Greg Raymer
2005 - Joseph Hachem