The World Series of Poker came about as a result of the popularity of the game itself. More and more people are discovering the game and the challenges it brings not to mention the chance to trouser some cash. The first was held in nineteen-seventy and the event has grown with each year. The winners become celebrities in their own right.

Binions Horseshoe of Las Vegas Nevada hosted the event for years until it was moved to Harrahs in Reno Nevada. Anyone with enough money and skill has a chance at the event. It is a series of elimination tournaments that winds up with a final show-down with the last participants playing a winner takes all game, with the winner of that event walking away with a veritable fortune.Texas Holdem, Omaha Razz and Stud poker are the games that are played at the event. All the worlds best players come together along with amateurs who wish to test their skills at the pro level, making The World Series of Poker a unique event. You can literally arrive there an amateur and leave for home a pro if you have done your home-work and put in the practice.The World Series of Poker has been instrumental in bringing poker out of casinos and smokey card rooms and into the living rooms of households world-wide. It has helped to give the game a new and deserved respectability. Housewives, college students, blue caller and white caller working folks all find common ground at the poker table.

Poker brings everyone eye to eye in orting competition regardless of their background.Buy- ins for the initial rounds are generally between one-thousand and five-thousand dollars. The championship buy-in is ten-thousand dollars. The grand prize for the World Series of Poker is a ten-million plus dollar grand prize. For many poker players the real prise however is the coveted gold bracelet that is also awarded to the winner that signifies him or her as the greatest poker player of the world for that year.