PokerStars Sets New World Record for Largest Poker Tournament

Over three hours before the scheduled start time, the 200,000th player spent $1 to buy in to PokerStars’ 10th anniversary multi-table tournament that sets the world record for the largest ever in history.

First announced last month, the poker room was aiming for a minimum of 150k players to beat its own world record for the most number of players in an MTT. With no late registration, a cap at 200k players and a prize pool of $250k – meaning all participants were guaranteed a sizable overlay – a new record was all but ensured.

The bigger question might be just how the infamous PokerStars servers can handle the traffic. With 400k players at nearly 50k tables, it is not surprising the official Stars twitter client tweeted that “ome players may experience some server latency/lag” soon after the tournament began. The rep promised that things would “ease up as time goes on.” And with a quarter of entrants already out of the tournament in the first half an hour, it should not be long before connectivity issues are resolved.