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While most of us remember 9/11, and more specifically 9/11/2001, for the tragedy that occurred on that day, it was also on this date that PokerStars.com, now the largest online poker room in the world, was born.
From Pokerati.com:
It was just for play money at first, but the timing would prove fortuitous. People seemed to enjoy the software and were telling their friends … as online poker seemed to provide a much-needed escape from the ever-more-difficult to swallow news of the day.
At a time when Americans weren’t sure who was their friend or enemy, there was a certain peace in being able to sit down at a table with people from countries all across the world and play a game. The “PokerStars Internet Poker Room” would throw a big $5,000 freeroll that drew 836 players — making it the biggest online poker tournament in history (won by a player with the screen name “Kyle”.)
The site would begin offering play for “real money” in December of that same year. At the time PayPal was widely accepted in the online gambling sector.
PokerStars is responsible for sending Chris Moneymaker to the 2003 World Series of Poker via an online satellite tournament, which would ultimately result in the poker phenomenon that continues to this day where people realized that they could actually go up against the Doyle Brunson’s and Phil Hellmuth’s of the world…and win.
PokerStars was originally a Costa Rican company, Rational Enterprises, majority owned by the Scheinberg family of Israel. The company was subsequently moved to the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency. It became the world’s biggest online poker room after PartyPoker.com left the U.S. market in late 2006, and essentially lost around 70 percent of its market share. At that time, PartyPoker was double the size of its nearest competitor, that being PokerStars.
Ace King, Gambling911.com
