Record Breaking $12.1million WSOP Main Event Payout Provokes Negative Reaction

Image courtesy of PokerGO.com

Players and poker fans have reacted with some anger towards the World Series of Poker Main Event payout structure after the announcement of a record-breaking $12.1million first prize...

News of the record numbers at this year’s ME – 10,043 entries producing a prizepool of $93,399,900 – was followed by the WSOP announcement of $12.1million for first place.

That is $100k more than Jamie Gold scooped when he won the previous record-entry ME back in 2006.

Poker journalist Craig Tapscott recalled the top payouts from back in 2006, although only 10% of the field were paid that year compared to 15% this year:

• 1st place: $12million
  
• 2nd place: $6.1 million
  
• 3rd place: $4.1 million
  
• 4th place: $3.6 million
  
• 5th place: $3.2 million
  
• 6th place: $2.8 million
  
• 7th place: $2.3 million
  
• 8th place: $1.9 million
  
• 9th place: $1.5 million
  

Gold himself responded to the debate over the payouts...

For many it isn’t the top payouts that are the biggest issue, bemoaning the 50% ROI min cash of $15,000:

• I'm pretty much the rec of rec's, paying 15% is awful. Can't say I speak for all rec's but I feel like most of us would prefer to min cash for double the buy in rather than 50%. @golffan3
  
• It should be more like 25% if you want the game to be sustainable to play for a living and more players having more money overall. @YouGotHozed
  
• Shouldn’t there be some goal to maximize (or at least improve) the longevity of the ecosystem? Not saying that we need 20% payouts but a 10k person field with almost nobody even making 10 buyins is pretty wild. @PhdDfs
  

Doug Polk, however, thought the arguments mostly “nonsensical”, though perhaps only a very wealthy person could consider “your goal should be to win the tournament” as the only goal:

He added: “They could bolster the payouts down the stretch and take a bit off HU, which would be easy if they reduced how much of the field cashed. But this isn't some devastating atrocity.”

Ike Haxton disagreed...

...as did Matt Berkey...

The paid spots are still a day or so away, the remaining 3,538 players returning for day 3 led by Maurice Hawkins, the top 10 chip counts below:

Top 10 Chip Counts (end of day 2d)