The World Poker Tour (WPT) announced earlier this year that it wanted to expand its presence across the world and planned to be in 18 countries before the end of this year. The company recently confirmed that Japan will be one of those new countries as the WPT has planned an event in Tokyo that will take place between 23-26 November 2017.

WPT – JUPC Partnership

The WPT has partnered with the Japan Union Poker Corporation (JUPC) to spread the game of poker and set up an inaugural and successful WPT Japan. The JUPC has been instrumental in spreading poker in Japan and will play a significant role in helping the WPT break into Japan.

Japan has only recently legalized gambling and is yet to release gaming regulations for the industry. Legislators are currently in the process of finalizing a bill that will outline gaming regulations for the casino industry and are positive that it will be completed before the end of the year.

WPT Special Asian Passes

Since gaming regulations are yet to be finalized, the WPT cannot offer real cash prizes for the WPT Japan edition in November. As a result, the WPT cannot offer its usual massive guaranteed prize pools but has to make a change to its offering in order to conduct a legal WPT Japan event. The WPT has confirmed that winners at the WPT Japan will receive a complimentary entry to any WPT Asian event. The WPT Main Event winner will also receive a pass to a WPT Asian event and also to the Season XVII WPT Main Tour which takes place in Beijing, China.

Adam Pliska, the CEO of the WPT stated that the company was happy to partner with JUPC and looked forward to entering the Japan poker market in Japan. Pliksa stated that poker was growing rapidly in Japan and the WPT Japan event would give poker players in the region a great platform to showcase their skills. Players who wish to qualify for WPT Japan will have to participate in qualifiers that are scheduled to take place in local poker clubs.

WPT Asia-Pacific Leaderboard

The WPT is also running a WPT Asia-Pacific Leaderboard and players who win at WPT Japan will receive leaderboard points. The eventual winner will receive a package estimated to be around $15,000 along with accommodation for any WPT500, WPTDeepStack or WPT Main Tour.

Tags: World Poker Tour, WPT, WPT Beijing, WPT Japan, WPT500, WPTDeepStack

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 6th, 2017 at 6:20 am and is filed under Poker Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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