WSOP Expanding Its Reach in the African Market

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is looking to reach as wide of an audience as it possibly can going forward. This is why it has added an event to its schedule this year for Dakar Senegal. This event will take place between May 13 and May 22 in Senegal’s capital. There will be nine tournaments as part of this event, with the main event being a $1,700 buy-in.

There have been previous WSOP and World Poker Tour (WPT) poker events to have taken place in Africa. This includes events in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Marrakech, Morocco. However, the continent has a population of over 1.3 billion people and is a very big potential market for the game of poker.

A unique type of event

The WSOP Circuit series that will be taking place in Dakar is predominantly going to be made up of small stakes events. The average buy-in will be $500. However, certain events will have higher stakes in place. The play will be taking place at the Casino Plaza in Dakar, a property that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.

There have been numerous major poker events that took place over the years to help raise funds for people in Africa. This included the Big One for One Drop, a $1 million charity event back in 2012. With a prize pool of $42 million, 3.5% of it went towards the funding of clean water projects across Africa.

Expanding its reach across Africa

WSOP is making yet another big attempt to crack the Africa market. It had set up the World Series of Poker Africa back in 2010. This came following the successful expansion with WOSP Europe. The initial event took place in South Africa. This was due to South Africa being the biggest country for gambling in Africa.

The enation has over 40 licensed casinos up and running. They generate significant sums each and every year. There are also some notable poker players in the South Africa scene. This includes Raymond Rahme who finished in third place at the WSOP Main Event in 2007.

Two events took place as part of the WSOP Africa. However, after the shutdown of online poker in 2011 in the US, there were issues cropping up that led to the winding down of WSOP Africa in 2013. This came before the series was able to expand outside of South Africa and into other African nations.