The famous WSOP brand joins Ultimate Poker in offering real-money online poker in the States…
Ultimate Poker was the first company to offer real-money online poker in the States since Black Friday when it opened for business in April this year. It’s dealt 15 million hands since but tomorrow it’s going to have its first competition in the form of WSOP.com.
The plan for WSOP.com was to go live across the state of Nevada on Thursday September 19 at 9:19am PST, but the site decided to give players who had already pre-registered with the site a unique link to download the WSOP.com client ahead of its official release. All other players will be able to download the software and start playing from tomorrow.
This early bird version was effectively a test run ahead of the main launch in order to make sure everything was running smoothly in a real world scenario. Featuring all of the same features and options that will appear on the full version including a fully operational cashier, real-money cash games, sit and gos and scheduled tournaments, everything was operational despite only a small number of players taking part.
Once live WSOP.com plans to celebrate its launch with a series of promotions including $700 in Welcome Week Freerolls for new registrants, $1,000 and $2,500 nightly guaranteed tournaments, and a special weekly Sunday tournament beginning September 29 and guaranteeing at least $15,000 in prizes.
The cash games have also slowly started attracting players with the first ever regulated real money Omaha hands dealt in the United States currently taking place albeit at stakes of 10c/20c. For now and from launch WSOP.com offers players the option of hold’em (NL and FL), Omaha Hi (PL), Omaha 8 (FL), 7-Card Stud (FL) and 7-Card Stud 8 (FL) with other games including mixed variants potentially being added in the future.
Speaking about the upcoming launch, WSOP.com’s General Manager of Online Poker Geoffrey Stewart commented, “This opens up a whole new category for the WSOP brand, enabling us to connect with consumers year-round and reach them where they are most today – on digital devices.” He went on to say: “We have high standards, we know our players do as well, and we believe everyone will be impressed with WSOP.com once they get the chance to play and experience its exceptional benefits and rewards.”
For now the client is using a modified version of 888poker’s online poker software and therefore has a Mac option also available for download.
