Most of the poker news has been around the World Series of Poker which is currently taking place at the Rio in Las Vegas. However, the Hollywood Poker Open which is scheduled to take place this weekend at the M Resort is generating some interested as it comes with a prize pool of $500,000. While the money cannot be compared to what the WSOP is offering, it is still a sizeable chunk and the M Resort is expecting to draw some big names.
The Hollywood Poker Open is being sponsored by Penn National Gaming who believe that this event will further help to establish the company’s reputation within the ever expanding regional casino poker market.
The tournament stars on a Friday and gets over on Sunday. It has qualified seats for players which start at $2,500 buy-in no limit hold’em event which they can purchase through satellites which are present at the M Resort and also the company’s Hollywood properties. Jay Snowden, who is the Senior Vice President of Regional Operations for Penn National was positive that the tournament will have a good tournament. He believes that the timing and format of the tournament will prove to attract poker players from the WSOP to come and try their hand at the M Resort.
Snowden confirmed that over 200 players have already signed up and he expects to add to that total during the next couple of days. The event will take place at the convention facility at the M Resort which can house a maximum of 500 players. If Snowden manages to get 500 people into the event, he would have increased the prize money to $1.25 million and will surely get the attention of some big names.
In a statement, Snowden went on to say
Any walk-up business adds to the pool, which we have already guaranteed at $500,000. The timing of the event does accommodate anyone here for the World Series of Poker to take part. That’s why this is being held in timing with the World Series of Poker. A lot of our customers are in town for the tournament. Many of our best poker players will already be here. Poker is an important product in the regional market, so we’re excited to get so many qualifiers in our first event
The M Resort is also set to benefit by hosting this event as the Hollywood Poker Tournament will receive publicity thereby bringing it more opportunity to host other events and also gain a bigger customer base.
