2019 WSOP Day 40: Main Event Officially Second-Largest

Written by Jennifer Newell

Last updated on July 8th, 2019

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The numbers came in yesterday for the 2019 WSOP Main Event, and they were worth the wait. Participation increased, and the tournament officially became the second-largest in the history of the Main Event, taking a back seat only to 2006. Let’s get to the action of the day first and examine the Main Event numbers below that. On Sunday, July 7, this is what happened at the 50^th Annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Event 73:  $10K NLHE Main Event – Day 2C

Day 1A entries:  1,334 Day 1B entries:  1,914 Day 1C entries:  4,877 Day 2AB late entries:  100 Day 2C late entries:  344 Total entries:  8,569 Prize pool:  $80,548,600 Players paid:  1,286 Minimum payout:  $15,000 Winner payout:  $10 million Day 2AB players remaining:  1,087 Day 2C players remaining:  1,793 Day 2AB chip leader:  Timothy Su (USA) – 791,000 chips Day 2C chip leader:  Julian Milliard (USA) – 947,900 chips Day 3 starting time:  12noon

Event 75:  $1K Little One for One Drop NLHE – Day 1B of 5

Day 1A entries:  702 Day 1B entries:  more than 1,500 Prize pool:  TBD Players paid:  TBD Minimum payout:  TBD Winner payout:  TBD Day 1A players remaining:  approximately 250 Day 1B players remaining:  approximately 600 Day 1A chip leader:  Mark Eddleman (USA) – 464,600 chips Day 1B chip leader:  Stefan Ivanov (Bulgaria) – 658,000 chips Day 1C starting time:  Monday at 11am Day 2 starting time:  Tuesday at 1pm

Event 76:  $800 Online NLHE 6-Handed – Final

Total entries:  1,560 Prize pool:  $1,170,000 Players paid:  153 Minimum payout:  $1,872 Final table payouts:  1^st place:  Shawn “Bucky21” Buchanan - $223,119 2^nd place:  David “YoungPitts” Baker - $137,241 3^rd place:  Hunter “Ibinkustink” Gebron - $96,993 4^th place:  Alexandre “Apalexpex” Moreira - $69,831 5^th place:  Luigi Andrea “Bananasplit” Shehadeh - $50,310 6^th place:  Jeremy “Gimmiehaveit” Brown - $37,089

https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1148167617208709120

Notable Information

The WSOP staff revealed the numbers for the Main Event, along with some demographics. https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1147969315179655168 First, however, let’s look at the 2019 Main Event participation in comparison to other years:

--2006:  8,773 players --2019:  8,569 players --2018:  7,874 players --2010:  7,319 players --2017:  7,221 players

Some of the interesting statistics from the WSOP were as follows:

--Final 1,286 players to be paid, most in event’s history (1,182 last year) --Value of chips in play = 514.14 million (393.7 million last year) --Total of 222,794 chips in play (267,716 last year) --Players hailed form 87 countries (88 last year) --Average player age = 41.46 (41.23 last year) --Male participants = 8,219 (up 8.5% from 7,573 last year) --Female participants = 350 (up 16% from 301 last year) --Female participation = 4.08% (up from 3.82% last year)

It is very notable that female participation rose 16% this year, especially as compared to male participation up only 8.5% from last year. However, the final numbers still only show that women comprised slightly more than 4% of the entire Main Event field this year. Most tournament operators don’t track the number of women in their event fields, but it is widely believed that women typically comprise 3% to 5% of most tournaments. The WSOP number falls directly in that range. Despite a bit of year-on-year improvement, the percentage of women in the WSOP Main Event is still very low. Notably, the percentage of female players among those claiming United States nationality is 4.26%, while non-US players show only 3.66% female. Regarding other demographics, the vast majority of players hailed from the US, as usual, but the top 10 countries representing this year were as follows:

--United States = 6,110 --Canada = 420 --United Kingdom = 414 --France = 151 --China = 117 --Germany = 105 --Brazil = 104 --Australia = 91 --Russia = 79 --Austria = 73

And as far as the American states represented, including the District of Columbia, the top 10 were:

--California = 1,057 --Nevada = 698 --Florida = 540 --New York = 478 --Texas = 442 --New Jersey = 240 --Illinois = 236 --Massachusetts = 194 --Ohio = 169 --Pennsylvania = 157