The PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is a big deal for poker players and online poker watchers around the world. In fact, the 14th anniversary SCOOP is set to begin soon on the global PokerStars site with 318 total tournaments and $75.8M in prize pool guarantees.
The burgeoning US market has its own piece of the SCOOP pie. For the second year in a row, Michigan hosted a SCOOP series, joining New Jersey and Pennsylvania in their longer traditions. SCOOP 2022 for these three states promised $4.5M in prize pools this year. It kicked off at the end of March and wrapped nearly two weeks into April. And the results were very solid, showing nearly $6.4M in prize money awarded in total.
Baby Steps
The state-regulated US online poker market is all about baby steps. There’s only so much a poker site can do until more states legalize and join together via the Multi-State Internet Gaming Association. But PokerStars remains right in line with that slow-but-steady growth, as shown by SCOOP 2022.
The 2021 SCOOP USA did well. It awarded more than $6.35M in prize money. The totals for each state, as provided by PokerStars, were:
-2021 MISCOOP: $2,356,657-2021 PASCOOP: $2,642,486-2021 NJSCOOP: more than $1.36M
This year’s three SCOOPs did better by a slight margin, collectively. PokerStars didn’t provide the individual state totals but reported that the cumulative payouts came close to $6.4M. That number surpassed the guaranteed number by $1.9M.
SCOOP USA Highlights
In general totals, the three states combined tallied more than 100K tournament entries in the 115 tournaments. Those entries resulted in 345 SCOOP titles awarded, 90 of which came with trophies. The Main Events from each state produced these results:
-PASCOOP 2022: 879 entries; $246,120 prize pool; TrypotophanMan won for $40,900-MISCOOP 2022: 689 entries; $192,920 prize pool; iRunDaMitten won for $33,273-NJSCOOP 2022: 353 entries; $100K prize pool; BillHuckle won for $18,460
https://twitter.com/PokerStarsUSA/status/1513910569727836177?s=20&t=L9hzhuyKr7o6v8FD2XbStg
https://twitter.com/PokerStarsUSA/status/1513920890450370561?s=20&t=L9hzhuyKr7o6v8FD2XbStg
https://twitter.com/PokerStarsUSA/status/1513933219464425479?s=20&t=L9hzhuyKr7o6v8FD2XbStg
The New Jersey Main Event missed its guarantee by just $1,160, so PokerStars NJ kicked in the balance to put the prize pool to $100K as promised. Entries for that one were down from last year’s 391-entry total.
In fact, totals were down for all three mains. The Michigan Main Event dropped from 871 entries last year to 689 this year. And the Pennsylvania Main Event drew 1,015 entries last year but only 879 this year.
A few of the SCOOP USA highlights included:
-Largest field was PASCOOP Event 7 ($10 NLHE Spring Special) with 1,519 entries-Best PokerStars Ambassador performance was Mark “NaigoPA” Foresta with 2 wins from 8 final tables-Best single-event performance was Daniel “monkeyman067” Sewnig with two wins of the three NJSCOOP Event 10 tournaments
What Lies Ahead
There are several things in the pipeline.
First up will be the process of combining the New Jersey and Michigan PokerStars sites. In line with that, if Pennsylvania signs on to MSIGA as well, PokerStars can rope that one in, too.
There are also two states – Connecticut and West Virginia – that have no online poker sites yet. Should either or both of those states sign the agreement as well, PokerStars could link with a land-based property and launch PokerStars CT and/or PokerStars WV.
The next massive tournament series on PokerStars in the US market will be WCOOP – the World Championship of Online Poker. On the world stage, that has historically been larger than SCOOP. That will happen in the fall months and could be record-setting if interstate PokerStars is up and running.
https://twitter.com/SteveRuddock/status/1512031358050263043?s=20&t=L9hzhuyKr7o6v8FD2XbStg
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