Major Live Poker Tours

For information about major live poker tours in Europe, please visit our page dedicated specifically to that subject.

World Series of Poker

World Series of Poker (WSOP) started out as a very small competition consisting of six invited guests who tested their poker skills in a single tournament at the Bionion's Horseshoe Casino in 1970. The tournament was not a freezout tournament; it has a set stop time and the winner was determined by secret ballot afterwards.

Today, WSOP consists of nearly 60 different tournaments and the winner of each tournament is awarded with not only prize money but with a prestigious golden bracelet as well. WSOP is not longer held at Bionion's Horseshoe Casino; it has been moved to Harrah's Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. In 2004, Harrah's Entertainment received the rights to the WSOP-brand when they purchased Binion's Horseshoe. One thing about WSOP has remained the same since 1972 – the Main Event is always a No Limit Hold'em tournament with a $10,000 buy-in.

World Series of Poker Circuit

The World Series of Poker Circuit is a series of tournaments held at a variety of casinos as a build-up to the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

World Poker Tour

Despite being called the World Poker Tour (WPT), this poker circuit is chiefly a United Sates affair although a few stops do take place outside the U.S. WPT was formed in 2002 by Steven Lipscomb, a U.S. attorney and TV-producer who wanted to created a viewer-friendly televised poker tournament circuit. WPT became a great success and is credited as one of the major contributors to the poker boom of the 2000s.

Asia Pacific Poker Tour

The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) is the Asian equivalent of other PokerStars sponsored tours such as the European Poker Tour (EPT), the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) and the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT). Just like the other major PokerStars sponsored tours, the APPT is filmed for television.

APPT premiered in 2007 with stops in four different Asian / Pacific cities:

Nowadays, there is also a stop in Auckland, New Zealand.

North American Poker Tour

The North American Poker Tour (NAPT) is one of the later additions to the world of live poker. It premiered in 2010 and contains several high profile stops that tend to generate plenty of attention from poker media, such as PokerStars Caribbean Adventure on Bahamas and the stop at Bicycle Casino (“The Bike”) in Los Angeles. NAPT is filmed for television and broadcast by ESPN2.

Latin American Poker Tour

PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) premiered in 2008 with just three stops: Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, San José in Costa Rica and Punta del Este in Uruguay.

LAPT has become renowned for picking resorts and other famous tourist destinations rather than automatically going for the capital city, a decision which is believed to have boosted the tour's popularity among international players. Punta del Este is for instance an popular tourist resort on the Atlantic ocean with a year-round popular of just 7,300 residents.

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