Pokerstars.com last week dealt its 40 billionth poker hand, and celebrated the milestone with a weekend tournament that attracted over 36 thousand entrants.
The milestone comes amid turbulent times for poker rooms with recent decisions by Mastercard and VISA to block US player payments to online gambling operators, despite US Treasury approval of a 6 month delay in implementation of UIGEA.
36,169 players signed up to play in Pokerstar's Sunday F40 tournament, held in honor of the 40 billion milestone. A prize pool of $7,233,800 was created, making it the largest (non-WCOOP) online poker tournament ever.
The tournament's winner, 'RichieRichZH' from Switzerland, took home $1.1 million for his weekend's work.
It was only February 2009 when Pokerstars celebrated its 25 billionth hand dealt, indicating approximately 15 billion hands dealt online in the past 12 months.
About Pokerstars:
Pokerstars.com proclaims itself the world's largest online poker room and the home of online tournament poker. They are the home of the WCOOP (World Championships of Online Poker) annual poker tourney's. WCOOP's Main Events from 2007, 2008 and 2009 are the largest online poker tournaments held, by player numbers and total prize pool generated.
High profile players sponsored by Pokerstars and forming part of their 'Team Pokerstars' include WSOP champions Joe Hachem and Chris Moneymaker and 4 time world champion Daniel Negreanu.
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