Hugely Successful 2016 WSOP Breaks Several Records

The 2016 World Series of Poker has been a landmark event with many new records being set. These records include the highest number of entries, most number of total cashers, largest single opening flight and the biggest non-hold’em live tournament field size.

With 107,833 entries, the 2016 edition has seen the highest number of people signing up for the WSOP, an increase of four percent over last year when 103,512 entries were registered.

The total prize money awarded was $221,211,336 which is the third-highest in WSOP history.

The other two years with the highest prize money awarded were 2012 and 2014 when the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop tournament was included in the schedule.

This is the 12th year running in which the WSOP has generated a prize pool that exceeded $100,000,000, and fourth year in which the prize pool went beyond $200,000,000.A total of 15,767 participants were paid cash out of the total 107,833 registered participants, with the average first place prize being $555,475. The total number of gold bracelets at the 2016 WSOP was 69.

The headline event as usual was the 2016 WSOP Main Event which saw a total of 6,737 entries, an increase of five percent over last year. Around 1,011 places in the Main Event were paid which is a record for the 2016 WSOP, and the first place is guaranteed to receive more than $8,000,000.

The average age of those attending the WSOP hovered at 41.1 years of age, slightly higher than last year when it was 41.04. Males constituted 98.4 percent which was almost same as last year when it was 94.56 percent, while female participants this year was at 5.12 percent as against 5.43 percent last year.

Players from United States accounted for 77.9 percent of all entries, followed by Canada. Last year U.S. players had a slightly higher share with 79.6 percent. The starting flight for Main Event was the biggest ever with Day 1c seeing a stunning 4,240 entries. The $565 Pot-Limit Omaha affair saw a total of 2,483 entries which made it the biggest field ever in a non-hold’em live tournament.

The main individual honors were won by Jason Mercier and Roland Israelashvili. Mercier took the 2016 WSOP Player of the Year title while Israelashvi with total of 13 cashes in a single WSOP season set a new record for maximum wins. Israelashvili’s stunning performance was also the best-ever record in WSOP wins in a year.

The 2009 WSOP Main Event winner Joe Cada who won $8,546,435 for his first place finish also set a record by becoming the 10th person to cross the $10,000,000 cash-out mark in WSOP earnings.