Is The EPT Surpassing The WPT?

When it began just over six years ago, the World Poker Tour was the only game in town. Sure, the World Series of Poker was showing its usual mild growth, but it was a tournament schedule that didn’t have any draw other than its traditional April-to-May run. There wasn’t a great deal of poker action at the time and casinos were closing poker rooms across the United States in favor of the more lucrative banks of slot machines that didn’t have to have human operation to bring in the money.

The World Poker Tour changed many of the facets of poker, making it the “hip” thing to do as the first decade of the 21st century rumbled along. The WPT’s tournaments, broadcast on the cable network The Travel Channel, suddenly became highly popular as the game’s television ratings soared and players, professional and amateur, suddenly flocked to take part in the events. With this outpouring of players and, more importantly, the money that went along with it, other organizations began to put together their own tours to compete against the WPT.

In 2004, PokerStars decided to attack the untapped market that was Europe with their own tour, the European Poker Tour. Starting with a miniscule seven tournaments, the EPT found a foothold in the European arena and has since seen incredible growth as they continue their fifth season. While there have been other tours that have also started during this same time frame (the WSOP Circuit events, WSOP Europe, the Heartland Poker Tour, APPT, etc.), the EPT and the WPT have been the big draws for many poker players from around the world. It leads many to ask which is the better tournament schedule and, in this writer’s opinion, ask the more serious question as to whether or not the EPT has passed the WPT in popularity.

Location, Location, Location

When the World Poker Tour started back in 2002, it featured tournaments around the world and took viewers and players to locales that many would probably never venture. Las Vegas, Costa Rica, Aruba, the islands of the Caribbean, the Bahamas and Paris, France were just some of the opulent stops that the tour made in its early history and the playing sites were featured almost as much as the players were at the tables. As the WPT has moved into its seventh season, though, these grandiose destinations have dropped away from the schedule.

Aruba was dropped when the WPT started their own poker room and Ultimate Bet, as the sponsor of the Aruba event, didn’t figure into the mix. Same was also true for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and the PartyPoker Millions. The yearly stop at the chic Aviation Club in Paris was derailed by the online gaming laws of France and the creeping schedule of the WSOP. Other locations such as Spain (while part of the Season Seven schedule, it was not taped for broadcast in the U. S.) and the Turks and Caicos were simply dropped due to lack of turnout.

As the seventh season of the WPT is playing, here is a list of the locations where they currently have stops: Las Vegas (four times), Los Angeles, Atlantic City and Connecticut (twice) and once each in Canada, Biloxi, MS and San Jose, CA. The WPT doesn’t reach off of the North American continent anymore, a distinct change from their early days.

The EPT started with seven tournaments and has been steadily expanding their reach on European soil. This year’s schedule has 11 tournaments and features such exotic ports of call such as Barcelona, London, Budapest, Copenhagen and San Remo. It all wraps up in 2009 with their traditional Grand Final, played in potentially the swankiest of all locations, Monte Carlo.

When faced with a decision, what tour sounds more desirable to the top professionals and amateurs who happen to make it there?

The Numbers Don’t Lie

From its start in 2002 and through most of its fifth season in 2006, the WPT showed astronomically strong growth in its field sizes. Since the introduction of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in mid-2006, though, the numbers coming to the tables for the $10,000 WPT championship events have dropped off. While the allure of winning a WPT title is still strong, there are several reasons that this has occurred.

The UIGEA effectively cut off many online rooms from sending their players to the tournaments. Whereas pre-UIGEA the rooms could put the players in the particular WPT satellites that they had won directly, now they were barred from doing so. When a player wins one of the online satellites now, he is gifted with the buy in, airfare and hotel accommodations as a chunk of money in their online account with the hope that he/she will use it for that purpose. When faced with two possibilities for spending upwards of possibly $20,000 – entering a tournament that may return you nothing or taking the money and running – It could be argued that many kept the money in their pocket (this has been seen at the WSOP Championship Event as well).

Add into this scenario the downturn in the economy over the past two years, where even the gaming haven of Las Vegas is having a tough time, and it shows why the smaller fields in WPT events have been happening.

On the other side, the EPT has seen each year of their stable of events grow consistently and has kept their buy-ins surprisingly low (when you look at the conversion rates). With the smaller poker rooms that are present in Europe, the EPT couldn’t, in its early years, draw as well as the WPT. Now, with its burgeoning popularity, the EPT routinely sets a cap on their tournaments and then passes it by allowing stand by players to enter the events after they have started. Each stop on this year’s EPT schedule has seen this happen.

There are several advantages that the EPT has in this area over the WPT. Because their primary sponsor is PokerStars, there is a constant stream of online players who win their way into tournaments and can be entered in by the sponsor. Without being hamstrung by the legalities that hamper the U. S., you could conceivably have a field that is entirely made up of online qualifiers. The minimum gaming age of eighteen also allows online wunderkind who have learned the game on the internet to step to the tables opposite their idols and exposes them to the poker world at least a couple years before they could legally step into a North American casino (Annette Obrestad comes to mind here).

The power of European currency also has a huge effect. With the Euro and other continental denominations stacking up well against the American dollar, it makes more sense for those professionals who ply their trade to stay home and potentially rake in a significant win, rather than spend a sizeable chunk of their bankroll for potentially nothing. If you could go to a tournament that pays the champion a $1 million-plus payday outside your back door versus heading across the pond for that same chance, which option would you take?

So Who Gets The Nod?

While the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and its marathon two month (or potentially longer now, with the final table move to November this year) schedule, will always be the marquee event in poker, the European Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour seem to be battling for the same territory. It is possible that both could continue to be highly successful on their own frontiers of North America and Europe (and a little aside here – wouldn’t it be great to see a EPT Champions versus WPT Champions “Poker Superstars International” made-for-television event?), but poker players only have so much time, health and, most importantly, bankroll to be able to expend. So which one is the better tournament schedule now as they continue to drive further into the poker landscape? It is only a question that can be answered as their respective tours motor along.