Asia – The market of the future
That Asia and especially China and India are the poker markets of the future is undeniable and it seems that everybody wants their piece of the pie.
Everything started, when Ourgame, a Hong Kong-listed corporation specializing in social gaming, with a wide offering of card games acquired the World Poker Tour (WPT) in June 2015.
Since that there has been a lot of movement on the Asian poker market. In December GPI and Hendon Mob owner Alex Dreyfus has launched the Global Poker League (GPL) China.
And now the WSOP follows suit by signing a multi-year contract with Tencent, the leading internet provider in China and owner of League of Legends and Tencent Poker, the most popular mobile poker app in China.
The goal is to promote poker throughout Asia
The goal of the WSOP-Tencent strategic alliance is to help educate and grow the competitive game of poker in Asia, using the digital expertise, reach and distribution of Tencent, combined with the WSOP’s tournament expertise, brand value and authority.
The alliance will also seek to include elements inspired by eSports in future events, to further bring the competitive and strategic thinking of poker to a broader audience.
For the first time in its history, WSOP will develop a program for Tencent to help train and certify poker tournament staff and provide expertise on event structures, rules, equipment for WSOP Asia and WSOP China.
“There is so much untapped potential in Asia”
“There is so much untapped potential in Asia and we’ve found the perfect partner in Tencent to help spread the great game throughout the entire continent. We plan to use the WSOP brand and our expertise, along with Tencent’s reach in Asia, to inspire the next generation of competitive sport players”, said Executive Director of WSOP Ty Stewart.
Tencent has been granted exclusive WSOP merchandise rights will also have media content distribution and production rights in Asia, including livestreaming of events.
“We are very excited to partner with WSOP and hope to leverage our expertise in eSports to bring new innovations to the competitive game of poker,” said Corporate Vice President of Tencent Group Jerry Chen.
Qualifier for the WSOP China will run on Tencent’s mobile app
Tencent owns the most popular social media and mobile app called in China called Tencent Poker.
They have already started to hosting land-based poker events under the name Tencent Poker Tour in Sanya, Hainan, China, where you will be able to qualify for the WSOP China.
In addition to that, Tencent will run online qualifiers on its Poker app starting August 2017.
Due to gaming regulations all live events in China are free-to-play with players entering the tournament by qualifying through the poker app.
First event: WSOP China in December 2017
The first live event the pair will scratch heads on will be WSOP China in December 2017.
Taking into consideration that all live events in mainland China need to be free events without buy-in, it is not clear yet whether the WSOP China will run on the mainland or on the island of Hainan, where it is possible to play for real money.
What has already been determined is that the WSOP China will host several bracelet events and that there will be live updates and live streams from the event.
