World Poker Tour Breaks Record

LOS ANGELES – (PRESS RELEASE) -- When Foxwood's World Poker Finals concludes tonight, it will mark the largest prize pool in the history of a World Poker Tour regular season event. With a record 783 players competing in the $10,000 buy-in event, $5 million of the nearly $8 million prize pool will be awarded to the six final table players, with more than $2 million going to first place and more than $1 million going to second place.

Season IV of the World Poker Tour continues to make poker history, on pace to top $100 million dollars in prize money, doubling all money awarded in the history of the Tour.

"We continue to set records," says Steve Lipscomb, President and CEO of WPT Enterprises, Inc., "and Foxwoods always manages to raise the bar for everyone on the Tour. The WPT congratulates our partners at Foxwoods for the largest regular season event in our history, in a league that has firmly established itself as the richest individual sport in the world."

Remarkably, four of the six players will likely be added to the ever-growing WPT millionaires club, already boasting 29 members in just four seasons. With sixth place paying more than $600,000, returning young gun poker sensations Alan Cunningham and Bill Gazes are certain to join the list. But to move up that prize list they will have to climb over Hall-of-Famer Lyle "Daddy Warbucks" Berman, and the chip leading Cinderella story, 21-year-old Nick Schulman -- a kid on a mission to live the new American dream of winning a WORLD POKER TOUR title -- and scoring life changing money on prime time television in the only sports league in the history of televised sports that allows anyone to show up and take a shot at legitimate sports fame and fortune.

Spectators began lining up at 6 a.m. this morning for the chance to get a coveted seat in the WPT arena when the Final Table begins filming this afternoon at 4 p.m. in the Grand Pequot Ballroom at Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Mashantucket, CT.

"Poker history will be made again tonight," said Lipscomb, "and one guy is going to walk away with $2 million. Not bad for a week of poker."

The next stop on the tour is the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio in Las Vegas, Dec. 13-16.

The WPT launched the poker boom when it first aired on the Travel Channel in the U.S. on March 30, 2003, and it continues to lead the way in developing poker as a major international sport.