The coronavirus outbreak crippled almost all industry sectors last year. Brick-and-mortar casinos are not an exception. The biggest poker tournament in the world had to be called off in 2020. Well, the World Series of Poker was not entirely called off as it was transferred to the online version. The biggest live poker festival on the planet was moved online as GG Poker and WSOP.com hosted thousands of players from all over the globe to make the event happen (at least in this form). We can say that the online casinos took advantage of the whole horror situation in the world last year. This was not only the case with gambling. Most people were forced to work from home, moving their businesses online.
Online gambling-related websites such as AmericaGambles have never been more active. The question is, however, whether they can represent a genuine replacement to the good-old brick-and-mortar casino experience? This question is valid for all games, but for poker in particular.
WSOP Circuit Series Event as an alternative
At the moment, it is impossible to answer the question from the title of the article. What we do know is that the WSOP have designed a Circuit Series Event as somewhat of the alternative. It will be a year-long series featuring one tournament per month (12 in 2021). The grand finale of the event is scheduled for December 21st, 2021 at the $250,000 WSOP Online Circuit Championship (limited to 256 players).
Three options for the possible World Series of Poker kick-off
Since WSOP announced the aforementioned Circuit Series Event, the players from all over the world became skeptical about the chances of a real World Series of Poker event occurring this year. While nobody can give you a proper answer to the main question, we can discuss two possible variants.
The first one is a dream option, but almost impossible to happen. It would see the World Series of Poker kicking off in May and ending in July. While Joe Biden’s win is certainly good for both live and online poker, there are just too many other factors preventing such a massive event to be held in Las Vegas in May.
The much more realistic option is to have the World Series of Poker in October. With more than eight months to go, we have a reasonable time frame to expect better days. After all, we have vaccines – a key weapon that could finally help us beat the invisible nemesis. If the health situation suddenly becomes better in the near future, we could potentially be looking at the organization of a WSOP event in a land-based casino.
The least popular, yet the most likely scenario is not to have World Series of Poker in 2021. In the best-case scenario, the entire action would be held online and only the two final tables would be moved to Rio or King’s Casino.
