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Billed as the “biggest poker tournament in Europe,” The Partouche Poker Tour (PPT), now in its 5th year, will no longer be “guaranteeing” a €5 million prize pool but has since altered that “guarantee” to €4.3 million, much to the chagrin of those already playing in the event. This begs the question: “What’s the point of guaranteeing something that you can’t guarantee”?
The website PokerFuse.com first reported that the “€8500 buy-in tournament, a culmination of many satellites and super satellites held across casinos in France, was originally sold as having a €5m guaranteed prize pool”.
The same number of people, 580, entered this year’s tournament as last year.
The €700,000 difference may at first seem petty in the whole scheme of things until one realizes that most of today’s major tournaments pay around this amount, and usually much less, as a top prize. The coveted Aussie Millions had been paying just a little more than this amount up until a few years ago. €700,000 is around US$900,000. Such a large chunk of funds removed from the equation is sure to raise some eyebrows.
Compounding concerns, organizers claim there was never a guarantee of €5 million.
Thankfully there is Google cache, a time capsule of websites as they appeared at a prior time.
From PokerFuse.com:
On the official sales page of the Partouche Casino and Spa, host of the tournament, it originally stated in bold at the top, “Participez gratuitement au plus grand tournoi de poker d’Europe: Le Partouche Poker Tour et ses 5 millions d’euros garantis!”
It went on to detail how players could buy in to satellites with the promise of such a prize.
Another page announcing Sam Trickett’s final table victory at last year’s main event, finished with the paragraph:
See you next year for season 5 of the Partouche Poker Tour, this time with a guaranteed prize pool of 5 million Euros! Qualify throughout the year in our 40 casinos.
The paragraph has since been removed from the live version. However, still live now on partouche.com is an image proudly proclaiming “€5 million,” and on partouche.be it still states clearly:
Offering a guaranteed prize pool of 5 MILLION EUROS, the Partouche Poker Tour once again affirms its place as Europe’s top tournament. Secure your seat on Partouche.be or in our Belgian casinos in 2012.
iGamingFrance contacted Maxime Masquelier, Head of Partouche Poker Tour, who reiterated organizers claims that no such guarantee was ever made “in writing”.
“For a buy-in of €8,500 I think we can be proud of the final figure,” Masquelier responded. “At no time did we say that €5m was secured when it is guaranteed in writing.”
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
