POKERSTARS 2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF ONLINE POKER IS BIGGEST EVER WITH 70 EVENTS

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14th WCOOP features $45m guarantee and first $51k Super High Roller

ONCHAN, Isle of Man – July 20, 2015 – PokerStars, an Amaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AYA; TSX: AYA) brand, today announced that the 2015 World Championship of Online Poker, which takes place from September 6-27, will be the biggest to date, with a schedule of 70 events – four more than last year. It will also feature the largest buy-in online tournament ever held with a $51,000 Super High Roller and a guaranteed prize pool of $45 million – a $5 million increase on last year.

The highlight of the World Championship is the $10 million guaranteed Main Event on September 27 at 14.30 ET, which is set to be the richest online poker tournament of the year, but there is also a huge amount of buzz and excitement from the world’s top pros at the announcement of a $51,000 Super High Roller tournament.

Team PokerStars Pro and two-time World Championship of Online Poker winner, Jason Mercier, said: “The World Championship is undoubtedly the most prestigious online poker event of the year. There’s a huge range of tournaments, very slow, deep structures, and some massive buy-ins. Winning three SCOOP events earlier this year was awesome, but adding to my two previous WCOOP titles this coming September would be even better.”

WCOOP SCHEDULE

PokerStars has added four more events to this year’s schedule to set a new record of 70 different tournaments – the biggest jump in the number of events for five years. Building on the illustrious reputation of WCOOP, for the first time there are also 15 special ‘Championship’ events with bigger buy-ins, which incorporate Hold’em, Omaha, Stud and Draw games of different variations, which will test the very best online players in the world.

For the first time ever there are also three 3-Day events, which are as follows:

    • WCOOP-26: $700 NL Hold’em, $1.5M GTD
  • WCOOP-48: $2,100 NL Hold’em, $2M GTD
  • WCOOP-69: $5,200 NL Hold’em Main Event, $10M GTD

Other series highlights include:

  • WCOOP-3: $10,300 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up, High Roller] – $300k GTD
  • WCOOP-9: $1,050 NL Hold’em [Super Tuesday SE] – $1m GTD
  • WCOOP-16: $1,050 NL Hold’em [Progressive Super-Knockout – $1m GTD
  • WCOOP-19: $320 NL Hold’em [Turbo, Zoom] – $400k GTD
  • WCOOP-25: $10,300 NL Hold’em [8-Max, High Roller] – $2m GTD
  • WCOOP-37: $320 8-Game – $100k GTD
  • WCOOP-52: $530 PL Omaha [6-Max, 3-Stack] – $100k GTD
  • WCOOP-64: $700 PL Omaha [Heads-Up] – $150k GTD
  • WCOOP-70: $1,050 NL Hold’em Wrap-Up [Turbo] – $1m GTD

For a full tournament schedule, go to http://psta.rs/1JK20DG.

SATELLITE QUALIFIERS

Online satellites to World Championship events are now under way, with cash qualifiers starting from just $1, and available in a variety of formats including Multi-Table Tournaments, Sit & Go’s and Steps. The $5,200 Main Event Mega Path satellites, where players can buy-in using Frequent Player Points (FPP), start at just 1 FPP.

Last year a total of 77 players qualified for the $5,200 Main Event through the Mega Path and PokerStars hopes to see a significant increase on that figure in 2015. In 2012, Russian player ‘maratik’ qualified for just 40 FPP (equivalent to less than $1) and went on to win the Main Event for $1 million.

Players can find the current crop of qualifiers by logging on to PokerStars and clicking ‘Online Events’ > ‘WCOOP’ > ‘All’.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Some big additional prizes are awarded to the most consistent performers across the series. The overall ‘Player of the Year’ wins a Champion’s Trophy, $20,000 cash and a 2016 Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) Main Event ticket. Second to fifth places on the Leader Board receive cash prizes ranging from $10,000 to $2,500 plus 2016 TCOOP Main Event tickets, while sixth to tenth-place players are rewarded with 2016 TCOOP Main Event tickets. In total an extra $53,000 worth of added prizes will be awarded to the top 10 players.

HISTORY

The World Championship of Online Poker is the longest-running online poker tournament series and regarded as the most prestigious by the poker community. It began in 2002 with just nine events and $730,000 in total prizes, but has grown to such an extent that last year it had 66 events and saw nearly $62 million awarded to players.

The reigning Main Event champion, Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz, won $1.3m from a total prize pool of $10.7m in 2014, but the record first prize still belongs to Tyson ‘POTTERPOKER’ Marks, an American player who won $2,278,097.50 in 2010. Other past winners include well-known high stakes pros JC ‘area23JC’ Tran and Yevgeniy ‘Jovial Gent’ Timoshenko.

For more information, please email press@pokerstars.com.

About PokerStars

PokerStars operates the world’s most popular online poker sites, serving the global poker community. Since it launched in 2001, PokerStars has become the first choice of players all over the world, with more daily tournaments than anywhere else and with the best security online. More than 130 billion hands have been dealt on PokerStars, which is more than any other site.

PokerStars.com and PokerStars.eu operate globally under licenses from the Isle of Man and Malta governments, respectively. PokerStars also holds separate government licenses in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

PokerStars is the key brand of Rational Group, which operates gaming-related businesses and brands, including PokerStars, Full Tilt and the European Poker Tour. In 2012, 2013 and 2014, Rational Group companies in the UK and Isle of Man won recognition as one of the best workplaces in the UK being awarded a top 25 position by the Great Place to Work Institute’s Best Workplaces – Large category rankings. Rational Group entities in Costa Rica and Dublin also achieved the same accolade in their respective local rankings in 2014. PokerStars is owned by Amaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AYA; TSX: AYA).

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