The world’s leading online poker site, PokerStars, is gearing up for an anniversary edition of its flagship tournament, the Sunday Million.
The 13th Anniversary of the Sunday Million will take place on April 14, 2019, pokerfuse can exclusively reveal.
This comes just a few days after the site announced its plans to permanently reduce the Sunday Million’s buy-in to $109. The first Sunday Million with the new buy-in will take place on January 27. The iconic tournament will maintain the same guarantee of $1 million meaning, the operator will now need to attract 10,000 players to cover the guarantee.
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Details regarding the guarantees and the buy-in for the upcoming anniversary of Sunday Million have yet to be revealed. The operator said it is “too early” to decide what the guarantee and buy-in would be. It further said that the room will evaluate the performance of the newly reduced buy-in that runs this Sunday.
“We’re proud of the continued success of the Sunday Million after all these years, and we will celebrate that success with the Sunday Million 13th Anniversary on 14 April, 2019,” said Severin Rasset, Director of Poker Innovation and Operations at The Stars Group, to pokerfuse.
“It’s too early at this point to say what the buy-in and guarantee will be for the Anniversary event. After all, we’ve not even run the first $109 edition yet. We’ll evaluate performance and decide later what to do for the Anniversary event,” Rasset added.
The operator is also expected to run the anniversary edition of another flagship event, the Sunday Storm, in the coming months. However, as of now, the operator has yet to reveal any details on it.
Sunday Million Anniversary Edition History
Previously, all the anniversary editions have run with the same traditional buy-in ($215) with guarantees at least five times more than the usual guarantee of $1 million. The last three years have had a guarantee of $10 million in prize money.
However, in February 2018, PokerStars was stung with a massive $1.2 million overlay in the 12th anniversary edition of Sunday Million. In total, the tournament attracted 34,274 players and 9701 re-entries, falling short of reaching the guarantee by over 6000 entries. On the same day, PokerStars also hosted an anniversary edition of the Sunday Storm boasting a $1 million guarantee and running alongside the Sunday Million.
The overlay for the 12th anniversary of the Sunday Million turned out to be the biggest-ever overlay in online poker industry and the second biggest overlay including both live and online tournaments. The record for the biggest overlay belongs to the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open which in 2014 fell way short of its $10 million guarantee by $2.5 million.
Using February’s massive overlay as a marketing theme, PokerStars scheduled another $10 million guaranteed anniversary edition in April under the same parameters as the previous version—except this time with the name “Take 2”.
The gamble paid off as Take 2 saw 56,310 total entries, amassing a prize pool of more than $11 million. In fact, this was not even the largest Sunday Million ever. That record was set in December 2011, surprisingly six months after Black Friday, when PokerStars celebrated its 10th anniversary by guaranteeing $10 million to its flagship weekly event.
The December 2011 event drew 62,116 players making a prize pool of $12.4 million. It held the record for largest online poker tournament for almost a decade until recently partypoker broke this record by successfully hosting a $20 million guaranteed tournament.
What is even more impressive about the 2011 event is that back then there were no re-entries and the US players were prohibited from playing on PokerStars.
Sunday Million Anniversary History
| Year | Turnout | Entries Collected | Guaranteed | Guarantee Exceeded | Overlay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 33,732 | $6,746,400 | $6,000,000 | $746,400 | 0 |
| 2013 | 49,287 | $9,857,400 | $7,000,000 | $2,857,400 | 0 |
| 2014 | 46,586 | $9,317,200 | $8,000,000 | $1,317,200 | 0 |
| 2015 | 50,432 | $10,086,400 | $9,000,000 | $1,086,400 | 0 |
| 2016 | 55,059 | $11,011,800 | $10,000,000 | $1,011,800 | 0 |
| 2017 | 55,835 | $11,167,000 | $10,000,000 | $1,167,000 | 0 |
| 2018 | 43,975 | $8,795,000 | $10,000,000 | 0 | $1,205,000 |
| 2018 Take 2 | 56,310 | $11,262,000 | $10,000,000 | $1,262,000 | 0 |
One thing is for certain, when it comes to hosting large-scale tournaments only PokerStars is capable of providing remarkable opportunities for low-stakes players to win life-changing amounts of money.
It will be interesting to see what buy-in level PokerStars sets for its anniversary edition of the Million this time around. Will it be $109 or $215, will it still run with a $10 million guarantee or some other figure, we’ll find out soon. Keep watching this space!
