Today is September 11, a date that needs little explanation for most people around the world. Twenty-five years ago, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed the course of modern history, and on that same day in 2001, a new online poker site quietly opened its doors to the public.

That site was PokerStars.

PokerStars is now 25 years old, with the company having spent much of 2026 looking back at its history. Its anniversary promotions have already come and gone, while the site is currently running the 25th edition of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). But September 11 remains the exact date on which PokerStars first became available to the public.

There is an interesting story behind how the Red Spade giant came to launch on one of the most unfortunate days imaginable. Steve Badger, one of PokerStars’ earliest employees, later wrote about the company’s beginnings and the people involved in getting the new poker room off the ground.

One of them was Terrence Chan, who had become involved after PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg came across his posts on the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup. At the time, the online poker community was still relatively small, and newsgroups were an important meeting place for players and poker enthusiasts.

As PokerStars prepared to open its public beta, Chan was asked to announce the launch to the poker community. According to Badger’s account on his personal website, Chan wrote the announcement on September 10, 2001, saved it and went to bed.

The plan was straightforward: send the announcement the following morning and let players know that PokerStars was ready for them.

Chan did exactly that when he woke up on September 11.

It was only after sending the announcement that he checked the news and realized what had happened in New York.

The timing was, of course, extraordinarily unfortunate. PokerStars had spent time preparing for its public launch, but the announcement of a new play-money poker site was understandably insignificant compared with the events unfolding across the United States that morning.

There was also no reason for the PokerStars team to have selected September 11 specifically. It was simply the date they had chosen to make the beta available, and nobody could have anticipated what the day would become.

How PokerStars Took Off

The PokerStars that launched that morning was a long way from the company that players would come to know over the next 25 years.

The September 11 launch was only a public beta, and players could not yet play for real money. PokerStars was still working toward its first real-money games, which arrived on December 12, 2001.

According to the operator’s own history, Swedish player Oskar “pokermaniac” Hornell became the first person to play a real-money hand on the site.

From there, the company grew alongside the online poker industry. PokerStars launched WCOOP in 2002, and the following year Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP Main Event after qualifying through the site, becoming one of the most important figures in the online poker boom.

Over the years, PokerStars would add the Sunday Million, SCOOP, the European Poker Tour and a long list of major live and online events, eventually becoming one of the most recognizable brands in poker.

But September 11 was never going to be a conventional anniversary date for PokerStars.

For obvious reasons, PokerStars does not treat the date as a day of celebration. There are no birthday parties or anniversary festivities built around September 11 itself. Instead, the company’s 25-year history has been celebrated throughout the year, while the date on which it actually launched has remained a curious footnote to its history.