2017 WSOP Enjoys Record-Breaking Summer

This 2017 World Series of Poker was the most well-attended since the world’s most prestigious poker tournament series began back in 1970. In total, a record 120,995 players attended the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and to put matters into perspective, that figure represents an increase of over 13,000 players versus last year.
Furthermore, a roughly $231 million prize pool was created, with the $10k Main Event accounting for around $68 million of that tally. Despite the Main Event’s impressive number, which was up by 7.2 percent compared to 2016, there was one fly in the ointment as far as future growth is concerned; namely that the 21 to 25-year-old demographic had the fewest numbers at this year’s WSOP main event at just 347 players, representing a mere five percent of its field.
One of the players pointing out this worrying statistic is 3-times bracelet winner Doug Polk, with the 28 year-old tweeting this week: “This trend should be one of the most concerning ones for the future of poker IMO. Black Friday is wiping out the younger age players.”
The declining number of younger players participating in the Main Event is further highlighted by the fact that in 2010 the average age was 37.33 years, which by 2016 had risen to 40.08 and then 40.59 in 2017. On the positive side, however, the 21-25 demographic has never constituted a major percentage of the Main Event’s field, as can be seen, for instance, by the 2015 (501 players) and 2016 (374 players) figures compared to the biggest groups that exist in the 26-30 and 31-35 range which combined was 2,599 and 2,815 playersd in the same year’s, respectively.
Furthermore, there were 3,320 WSOP Main Event players over 35 years old in 2015, or 52 percent of the total field, with that number rising to 3,876 players in 2017, representing 54 percent of the WSOP Main Event entries overall.