PartyPoker and the World Poker Tour have expanded their business relationship with an agreement to team up over a four-year period to deliver major live tournament events across Europe and Canada.
InfoPowa readers will recall that the two poker giants originally had the same owner; PartyPoker acquired WPT in 2009 for $12.3 million and sold it to Chinese conglomerate Ourgame for $35 million in 2015.
Since then the two managements have collaborated on various live and online poker events and promotions, and clearly enjoy a sound working relationship.
The new four-year deal takes that relationship to another level, with the companies committed to jointly creating up to seven major live poker events with guaranteed prize pools of up to Euro 3 million each across Canada and Europe.
WPT CEO Adam Pliska said in a press release this week:
“The World Poker Tour is proud to partner with partypoker LIVE on this new, four-year global initiative. The partnership allows the WPT to continue its dedication of bringing world-class poker to people’s lives, and we are honored to have John Duthie and the entire team at partypoker LIVE sharing in this value. Together with partypoker LIVE, we look forward to elevating the game for all levels.”
The first event planned by the partnership will take place in October this year at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal. It will be a WPT500 event, a WPTDeepStacks event and a WPT Main Tour all in one festival of poker at the famous Canadian club. That will be followed in 2019 by major events in Sochi, Russia and Nottingham in the UK.
PartyPoker players will have the opportunity to win over 300 seats in these big events via satellite competitions.
PartyPoker’s John Duthie said: “The WPT has always aimed to put the players first, and that is a mission we strongly adhere to with our partypoker LIVE events. Collaborating with the WPT on these additional events across Canada and Europe will allow us to continue to provide players with the tournaments they want across the globe.”