World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE)

History and information about the WSOPE

The World Series of Poker Europe was founded in October 2007, when Harrah’s Entertainment decided to expand the world famous WSOP brand to include a European tournament series. The first WSOPE was hosted in London at The Empire at Leicester Square, a casino owned by Harrah’s Entertainment.

 The WSOPE was the first place outside of the normal WSOP in Las Vegas to award WSOP bracelets to the tournament winners. A major reason for the expansion to Europe came from the UIGEA Bill that was passed in 2006, disallowing WSOP to accept money from online poker sites and making them unable to host online satellites. This was not an issue in the United Kingdom as they allow legal regulated gambling and the WSOP could continue their partnerships with online poker sites. To ensure success at the first WSOPE, Harrah’s teamed up with the British betting giant Betfair, who would be responsible for online advertising of the events and hosting satellites for players to qualify for the events.

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

The WSOPE was launched into a already rich live tournament scene in Europe, with tournaments such as the EPT, EMOP and the GSOP. These tournament series travelled around all of Europe providing a main event and several side-events for players. The tournament series created a great barrier for WSOPE that would have been impossible for any other brand to overcome, but the WSOP is the most famous and prestigious poker tournament series in the world and players flocked to London to play, making the first event in 2007 a great success. The first WSOPE had three different events, including the WSOPE Main Event.

It was also in 2007 the youngest winner ever of a WSOP bracelet was found, when Annette Obrestad won the WSOPE main event and £1,000,000 at the age of 18 years and 364 days. Not only was she the first female to win a WSOP main event, but she was also the youngest to ever win a event. Her win made Annette famous all over the world, providing a good amount of press coverage of the WSOPE.

In 2008 the WSOPE was back, this time with four different events including a main event. The hype around the WSOPE had now spread to the US, with players such as John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu travelling from Las Vegas to London to play the WSOPE. Ivan Demidov also appeared at the WSOPE and reached the final table. This was noteworthy as he was also part of the 2008 November nine WSOP main event final table, making him the first player to reach two WSOP main event final tables the same year. Until John Juanda was crowned the winner of the WSOPE Main Event, people were speculating if Ivan could win both events and create poker history. Unfortunately for Ivan he didn’t win any of the events.

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

Another amazing performance in the WSOPE 2008 was done by the Danish poker player Jesper Hougaard who became the first player to win a bracelet in both the WSOP and the WSOPE and he did it the same year.

The WSOPE continued to grow every year, providing more and more events for players to participate in and with increased overall prize pools. in 2011 the WSOPE decided to move away from London and instead move to Cannes after players were complaining about having to play in the British Pound (£) currency instead of the main European currency the Euro (€). With the move to Cannes in France, WSOPE found a new exotic location for the players to enjoy as well as making the switch from £ to €, making the entry fee to the tournaments relatively smaller.

In 2012 the WSOPE introduced a High Roller re-buy tournament with a buy-in and re-buy of €51,000 to have a more complete tournament schedule and offer something unique to market for the WSOPE.

Today WSOPE offers eight different events, which vary in format, game variant and buy-in. WSOPE is by far not as big as the real WSOP, but does a great job in Europe creating interesting and exciting tournaments.

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


WSOPE Events

The WSOPE started out by having three different events in 2007, but has since increased to having eight different events yearly. Their most famous event is the WSOPE Main Event that has a €10,450 buy-in and provides a first prize of over €1,000,000. The WSOPE Main Event has had a stable amount of participants from its start and to present day, with an average of 402 players playing the Main Event yearly, which is far from the size of the WSOP main event, but with a slightly higher buy-in and fewer live tournament players in Europe it’s an acceptable number.

WSOPE hosts a “Ladies Texas Hold’em” tournament, which is a tournament only open for women to register to. The tournament has a small buy-in of €1,100 and has been added to provide women with a tournament where they can compete against other women, instead of tournaments that are 99% men.

They are also hosting a “High Roller” tournament, that started out being a €51,000 re-buy tournament, but has been changed to a €25,600 freeze-out tournament from 2013. The high roller tournament attracts all the biggest players in the world with its small field and big prize pool.

WSOPE offers events for all types of players, with buy-ins from as small as €1,100 most players can afford to play it.

WSOPE Hosting Cities

The WSOPE has been hosted in different casinos and cities over Europe since it started in 2007. Unlike the EPT and other similar tournament that visits many different cities in each season, WSOPE has only visited three different cities and all the tournaments are played the same place.

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

The WSOPE has been hosted the following places:

Year

City

Casino

2007-2010

London

The Empire at Leicester Square

2011-2012

Cannes

Casino Barrière de Cannes Croisette

2013

Paris

Enghien-les-Bains Casino

 

Main Event Winners

Since the first Main Event in 2007, the WSOPE main event has been the most popular and prestigious event at the WSOPE. We have collected the winners of all the main events in the table below.

Year

Name

First Prize Money

2007

Annette Obrestad

£1,000,000

2008

John Juanda

£868,800

2009

Barry Shulman

£801,603

2010

James Bord

£830,401

2011

Elio Fox

€1,400,000

2012

Phil Helmuth

€1,058,403