European Poker Tour (EPT)

History of the European Poker Tour

The European Poker Tour (EPT) was created in 2004 by John Duthie. John wanted to create a European poker series to compete with the World Poker Tour (WPT), which was primarily played in American casinos. John saw a unique opportunity to start up a competing tournament series, due to the hype and growth that was around the Texas Hold’em game all over the world.

John was the right man to create a new big tournament series in Europe. With a job in Television, his passion for poker and his relationship with Pokerstars, John had all the right merits to make the EPT successful. John got Pokerstars onboard as the main sponsor and co-owner of the EPT and hired the company Sunset + Vine to tape and broadcast the EPT all over Europe. John negotiated the TV rights and made himself executive producer. John was the commentary alongside Colin Murray the first 3 seasons, but was replaced by James Hartigan. James is the lead commentary in all EPT events and has professional poker players co-commenting with him.

177% up to 5BTC + 77 Free Spins!
New players only. Exclusive Welcome Bonus of 177% + 77 Free Spins
Casino

Pokerstars now streams all of the EPT events live on their website as well as having bloggers updating the Pokerstars Blog with all relevant information from the tournaments.

The first three seasons of the EPT was a huge success, with almost all events completely sold out. The EPT differentiated itself with having a smaller buy-in averaging around €3,000 and an 8 man final table, where the WPT cost around €8,000 and have a 6 man final table. Pokerstars also had a big part to do with the success, promoting the EPT extensively through satellite tournaments and TV advertising.

By season four, the EPT had become so popular that the casinos hosting the events couldn’t take in all the players that wanted to play. To cope with the popularity, the EPT decided to raise the buy-in price from around €3,000 to €7,000. The increased buy-in price didn’t scare away many players and the average prize pools increased tremendously.

Get 125% / $2,500 on 1st deposit!
New players only. Exclusive Welcome Bonus of up to $2,500
Casino & Sports

The EPT has always been very popular among players from the whole world, which can also be seen in the many different countries represented at every single EPT event.


EPT Cities

The very first EPT was held in Barcelona on the 18th September 2004 and the EPT has come back to Barcelona every single season since then. Barcelona and London are the only cities to be visited every season of the EPT so far and are looked at as the homes of the EPT.

The EPT has made an effort out of visiting as many cities as possible over the years. The EPT started out by visiting 7 different cities the first 2 seasons, but decided to expand. By season 7 the EPT was visiting 12 different cities all over Europe and a also had a stop in Paradise Island in Bahamas.

In total the EPT has visited 21 different cities all over Europe and Paradise Island. The most visited cities by the EPT are: Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Deauville, Monte Carlo, San Remo, Berlin and Prague.

250% Extra + $125 Free Chip!
New players only. 250% on 1st Deposit + $125 Free Chip
Casino


Winners of the European Poker Tour

There have been more than 90 different players from all over the world that has won the European Poker Tour Main Event over the years and more will continue to win it as the EPT continues to tour all over Europe.

The first EPT was hosted in Barcelona in 2004 and was a 1-day event. The buy in was €1,000 and a total of 229 players entered the event.

Swedish Alexander Stevic was the lucky winner of the very first EPT event and collected €80,000 for his one day of work. The €80,000 is the smallest first prize ever awarded in the history of the EPT.

The biggest first prize was awarded to the Dutchman Pieter De Korver at the Monte Carlo Grand Final Event in 2009. Pieter won an astonishing €2,300,000 and set the record for the biggest prize ever won in the European Poker Tour. In total, 21 different nationalities have won the EPT title.

The top 5 most winning nationalities in the EPT are:

Place

5BTC or 111% + 111 Free Spins!
New players only. Exclusive 111% Welcome Bonus + 111 Free Spins
Casino

Country

Times Won

1st

United Kingdom

13

2nd

United States Countryof America

12

3rd

Germany

10

4th

France

8

5th

Sweden

8


European Poker Tour Attendance

Over the years the EPT has gotten more and more popular and the attendance continues to grow. With more side events running alongside the main event, more players take the trip abroad to play live poker. The introduction of more side events came from the EPT team after several players were complaining about the lack of games running when they had busted out of the main event.

In the latest season of the EPT the average player field consisted of 825 players in each event.

Robbery of the EPT Berlin 2010

The 6th of March 2010 during the EPT Berlin event, a group of four armed and masked men robbed the Grand Hyatt Hotel where the event was running. The four men forced their way into the casino and stole €242,000 before escaping from the casino.

While the robbery was ongoing, panic spread between the players as they were informed about the robbery taking place. Poker tables were knocked over and people were running away from their games and tried to hide. The panic outbreak was caught on the Pokerstars live stream of the tournament; however Pokerstars quickly removed the live stream in case something worse should happen.

No players or staff was hurt during the robbery and the tournaments continued the next day.

Shortly after the robbery the police arrested six men, who were all involved in the robbery. In December 2012 the six men were sentenced to three and a half years of prison for their crime.