Why did the 2006 WSOP main event have so many more people than the 2007 WSOP main event?

Question

Why did the 2006 WSOP main event have so many more people than the 2007 WSOP main event?

Answer 1

It had to do with less people being able to qualify online do to UIGEA, check out the thread I included with this post.

Answer 2

i dont think it did. you are probably referring to a 2007 mini event, but im not positive.

Answer 3

2006 Entrants: 8773

2007 Entrants: 6358

Poker just seemed to be everywhere back in 2006 didn't it?  All over the tv and movies.  I think it was just kind of a fad for the masses.  There will always be die hard poker players...but you got a lot of casual players due to the exposure of the game and exposure of the tournament itself.

Answer 4

It has nothing to do with the popularity of poker fading. What actually happened was a result of the laws changing that made online poker companies more wary of staking players in US tournaments. In previous years, if a person won an online WSOP qualifier, the company (i.e., Full Tilt, Pokerstars, etc) would send a representative to Las Vegas to buy the players directly into the Main Event. Since the government made the legality of online poker more cloudy (they did NOT make it illegal, by the way), as a safety precaution, these online poker companies now give the players who won their qualifiers the cash value ($10,000+, depending on what the "prize package" includes) of the prize rather than actually buying them into the tournament.

The players are then able to do whatever they want with the money. Some choose not to play in the WSOP at all, some choose to play in live satellites or events with lower entrance fees, and some choose to go ahead and take their chances in the Main Event. This caused a significant decrease in the number of entrants into the WSOP. Remember, before online poker, the number of entrants was only in the hundreds. The number of players who qualify online has a huge effect on the total number of entrants.