Go big or go home seems to be the motto for PartyPoker’s promotional team judging by the announcement this week that the company is to make an industry record investment of $20 million in its Million Online project next year.
The announcement come off the back of a very successful Million Online tournament just two weeks ago (see previous InfoPowa reports) in which the company pumped in $5 million in guarantees and was rewarded with an entry list that topped 1,046 players, generating a prize pool $135,000 greater than the guarantee. Jonathan “sordykrd” Van Fleet won the inaugural event for $1.027 million.
Next year the second iteration of this event will take place December 1 to 4 with the $20 million investment quadrupling and eclipsing this year’s inaugural online festival.
PartyPoker is planning to make satellite and feeder tournaments available where players can win seats, starting early February with a weekly Millions Online Leaderboard where the top 10 spots each week will be awarded entry to the $5,300 buy-in principal event.
$3 million will be awarded through this promotion which will also include mid and low leaderboards that will give out $22, $109 and $530 satellite tickets to the top 20 players.
PartyPoker is also planning to reward the best players in every Live Million Main Event with 10 seats to the Millions Online or $53,000 in value awarded to the top 10 players. This will begin at Live Millions Germany mid-February at Kings Casino Rozvadov in the Czech Republic.
Announcing the new investments, PartyPoker managing director Tom Waters said:
“Running the first Millions Online this year was an exciting time for us, bringing the concept of our live tour online. The feedback we had from our players was overwhelming, so what better way to say thank you than to run it again but this time making the guarantee a whopping $20,000,000.”
PartyPoker Live president John Duthie said the inaugural Millions Online has exceeded expectations, giving the company the opportunity to bring together Millions players from all over the world at the end of the year to compete for an unprecedented prize pool.