Bookmakers Fear Ivey Win

Online bookies PartyBets reports a significant six figure liability on Phil Ivey winning the WSOP Main Event in Vegas, which gets underway at the Rio Hotel and Casino on the 7th November. Despite the fact that Ivey is a short stack placing seventh in chips in the November Nine his odds on taking down the tournament are only 5/1, making him third favourite.

PartyBets chalked Ivey up at 175/1 to win the Main Event earlier this year. He was 100/1 as the Main Event got underway and his odds have plummeted since then.

A PartyBets.com spokesman said: “Ivey will be a terrible result for us and we think that the industry as a whole will have massive liabilities. A big name on the final table of the WSOP is always bad news for bookmakers and in fairness they don’t come much bigger than Ivey. 175/1 as a starting price for any player in a field of 6,494 players is short to say the least – his true odds could have been double that but we had to price him prohibitively short because punters back the name. We have our fingers crossed that he doesn’t pull off a remarkable comeback. The bottom line is that for us it has to be anybody apart from Ivey.”

“I’m sure we’re not the only ones quaking in our boots – it doesn’t take long to get six figure liabilities with three figure prices. This would be the worst poker result for a bookmaker in history. Imagine the fear of those that Ivey may have backed himself with, they’ll make our concerns look trivial!”

PartyBets.com currently has monster chip leader Darvin Moon as the 3/1 favourite, followed by Eric Buchman at 4/1 and Ivey at 5/1. Ivey only has 265,000 more chips than France’s Antoine Saout but Saout is a 16/1 shot. The UK’s James Akenhead, a recent participant in the PartyPoker.com World Open V alongside Saout has also been well supported but is still 14/1. A Shulman double, with Jeff joining father Barry as a WSOP Main Event winner this year is priced at 6/1.