- The first Sunday Million with a half-priced $109 buy-in enjoyed a big opening day, attracting over 12,000 players and 3000 re-entries to amass a prize pool in excess of $1.5 million.
- First place prize was 8.8% of the prize pool, but the payouts are set so that first place prize will always be at least $100,000.
- The company will host an anniversary edition in April.
The first Sunday Million with a half-priced $109 buy-in enjoyed a big opening day, attracting over 12,000 players and 3000 re-entries to amass a prize pool in excess of $1.5 million.
Last week, PRO revealed that PokerStars was reducing the buy-in of its iconic Sunday Million tournament from the usual $215 buy-in. It is perhaps the biggest change to its structure in its 13-year history.
To cover the $1 million guarantee, the company now needs to attract over 10,000 entries every week—a seemingly ambitious target given that no other weekly tournament at this buy-in level comes close to this kind of turnout.
Still, if Week 1 is any indication, the operator has nothing to worry about. In total, 12,458 individual players entered the tournament yesterday, of which 3092 re-entered (the format allows for a single re-entry). With a total of 15,550 entries, the prize pool grew to $1,555,000, 50% over its guarantee.
