- These two Day 1 flights will need to attract 1000 total entrants to cover the guarantee.
- In the last couple of years, the landscape for online poker tournaments has transformed.
- By 2019, massive guaranteed high-roller tournaments were not purely the domain of partypoker.
- MILLIONS Online was originally scheduled to return in 2020; the date shifted multiple times.
- While it is a world something of partypoker’s own making, it is understandable that it is changing tack.
Online poker operator partypoker has confirmed that its next MILLIONS Online tournament, scheduled to run in February and March 2021, returns to the more modest structure last seen when it debuted over four years ago: A $5300 buy-in and a $5 million guarantee.
The tournament will have just two Day 1s, each of which will allow only a single re-entry. These two flights will need to attract 1000 total entrants to cover the guarantee.
Historically, this would seem like an difficult target to hit. Indeed, when MILLIONS Online debuted in December 2017 with exactly this structure, it was considered ambitious; when it attracted 1027 entries to just surpass its guarantee it was deemed a success.
But in the last couple of years, the landscape for online poker tournaments has transformed. Thanks to tougher competition, better marketing and broader structures—many with multiple phases and relaxed re-entry limits—Main Events with prize pools of $10 million, $20 million or even higher are now commonplace. And partypoker itself has been instrumental in this shift.
Making Millions
Soon after its successful 2017 debut, the operator announced that MILLIONS Online 2018 edition would be four times the size—a magnitude unheard of at the time. It would, by a wide margin, set the record for the largest online poker tournament ever held.
