The first tournament on the Season 9 schedule for the WPT has had some very promising results for the new owners of the poker tour, Party Gaming. For the past few years WPT tournaments have seen dwindling attendance, but the Bellagio Cup VI has seen a sizable increase in attendance over last year, and registration is still not closed!

310 players have registered for the tournament thus far, and registration will remain open through the end of the first level on Day 3 of the poker tournament. A total of 268 players entered the tournament last year: Season 7 saw 446 entrants and Season 6 had 535 entrants. So, while the increase is a good sign, the WPT knows they can still do a lot better.

Shrinking attendance has been blamed on a number of factors, from more competition from rival poker tours, to the current recession. But this doesn’t explain how the European Poker Tour (EPT) has continued to grow during the same period; obviously Party Gaming saw flaws in the way the WPT was operating, and has done a good job of fixing those problems.

Hopefully the WPT can continue to increase attendance at more stops, and once again be seen as the #1 poker tour in the world.

Related posts:

1. World Poker Tour Prague sets attendance record On the heels of a terrific turnout of 231 players on Day 1a, the inaugural World Poker Tour Prague Main Event saw the 10-year old...

Tags: Bellagio Cup VI, Season 9 schedule for the WPT, WPT, WPT News, WPT tournaments

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 12:57 pm and is filed under WPT News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.