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The two largest and most well-known tournaments are the World Poker Tour championship event and the World Series of Poker, both held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 2005 World Series of Poker was the first held outside of Binion's Horseshoe Casino, though the final few days of the main event were held in the legendary Benny's Bullpen. Future tournaments have been held at one of the Harrah's Entertainment properties; since 2005, the Rio has served as the host venue.
Arguably the most publicized European tournament is the Poker Million, which began in 2000 on Sky Sports, following on from the success of the Late Night Poker television show.
In addition to these events, there are other major tournaments throughout the year. The World Poker Tour broadcasts a series of open tournaments throughout the U.S. and Caribbean with buy-ins from $5,000 to $25,000, as well as a European event.
Poker at Crown was introduced in June 1997, with the first major championship held shortly after in July 1998. The Main Event was a AU$1,000 buy in Limit Holdem tournament that attracted 74 entries with a AU$74,000 prize pool.
The Crown Australian Poker Championship, or the ‘Aussie Millions’ as it became known, moved to January in 2001, attracting 40 entrants with a AU$5,000 buy in for a prize pool of AU$200,000. January 2003 saw the event go international, attracting a field of 122 entrants and a AUD$1,200,000 prize pool.
In January 2005, the Aussie Millions continued to grow with 263 participants paying AU$10,000 each to enter the No Limit Holdem Main Event, generating the biggest prize pool ever in the Southern Hemisphere of AU$2,630,000. Over half the field was from overseas including players from New Zealand, England, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, USA, Sweden, Holland, Canada, Italy and Lebanon. In 2006, 418 players competed for a share of the AU$4,180,000 prize pool, including some of the biggest names in the Poker world such as WSOP Champion Joe Hachem, along with Phil Ivey, John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu.
The 2007 championship commenced on Sunday 14th January, 2007 with the final table held on Friday 19th January, 2007. The buy-in was AU$10,500 (AU$10,000+AU$500). A record 747 players entered, which generated a prize pool of AU$7,470,000. The top 80 players were "in the money" and received between AU$15,000 and AU$1,500,000 each.
What the BPO lured top players over from the US whom had not played in the UK before, such as the current World Poker Champion Greg Raymer, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer and this in turn brought the BPO further exposure.
The inaugural BPO was eventually won by Adam Dujmovic, a semi-professional from Chicago whom after qualifying for the tournament online, collected a prize just shy of 100,000 pounds.
The success of the BPO 2005 inevitably bought along the BPO 2006 a year later. The 2006 version had a pot of 100,000 pounds to be won over 6 heats and a final. Noah Boeken collected around 56,000 pounds.
