PokerStars tournament players got an unexpected, pleasant surprise last week when someone at the poker room inadvertently (at least we assume it was) set the guarantee on a tournament to 11 times its normal size. On February 21, the $82 buy-in “Hot $82” tourney had a $56,000 guaranteed prize pool, which seems high for an $82 tournament because it was: the regular guarantee was just $5,000.
EPT Cyprus Main Event champ Gilles Simon tweeted a screenshot of the super generous tournament lobby on X, joking, “Hahahaha stars intern is getting fired.”
At the time Simon shared the pic, the progressive knockout tournament had been running for 33 minutes and had 359 entries with 36 minutes remaining the late registration period. When registration closed, it had 624 entries.
For comparison, today’s Hot $82, with its normal $5,000 guaranteed, fielded 99 entries.
In the end, PokerStars had to cover $9,200 in overlay: $75 of the $82 buy-in went toward the prize pool, which means the 624 entries generated a $46,800 total prize pool. But even though PokerStars lost money on the mistake, the situation serves as an interesting lesson: generous guarantees draw players.
The Hot $82 is clearly not a popular tournament, but it suddenly became one with a larger guarantee. Now, PokerStars would have to figure out what sort of guarantee would work, but it certainly seems like something much higher than $5,000 could help attract more players and, in turn, more profits for the company. Plus, the more players Stars brings in for this tournament, the more players will stay for other ones.
As poker pro Aaron Barone tweeted, “Feels like a watershed moment for the industry, the poker equivalent of ‘Field of Dreams’ where the protagonist was told ‘If you build it, they will come.’”
“Despite no advanced notice, a mostly dead game like the Hot $82 nearly met its accidental 11x guarantee,” he added, “Imagine if operators learn from this and realize the market is more than capable and robust then they previously thought.”
“Could even call it ‘Felt of Dreams’ because if you guarantee it, they will reg.”
Conversely, it is entirely possible that the reason the tournament drew so many players – despite still overlaying – was because of the novelty of the accidental five-figure guarantee. Players saw it and decided to jump in because there was value to be had. Perhaps if the regular guarantee was higher than it is now, there still wouldn’t be a boost in popularity because players wouldn’t be excited about the mistake.
But hey, we’ll never know if PokerStars doesn’t experiment a little.
