Editor
The World Series of Poker’s online component hit a snag Monday, as a multiflight event with a million-dollar prize pool had to be cancelled amid technical difficulties. WSOP.com Online Bracelet Event #7 was entering its second day, but technical difficulties resulted a “high number” of players being unable to log in to continue play.
WSOP staff announced the cancellation on the social media platform X at 8:21 p.m. local time.
Field size may have been part of the issue. With a $250 buy-in, a $1 million guarantee, and the highly popular Mystery Bounty format, the tournament was bound to draw a crowd. Multiple starting flights had been running since June 1, all feeding into a single Day 2 on June 8.
WSOP will presumably be splitting up whatever portion of the prize pool wasn’t already paid out as bounties during the starting flights. However, whatever method is chosen may still lead to complaints, as the standard ICM (independent chip model) approach doesn’t factor in the bounty format.
Geolocation May Not Have Been at Fault
Early speculation on the day of the event cancellation was that the error was related to geolocation. However, a representative from WSOP’s provider Geocomply has informed PokerScout that they don’t believe that to be the case and haven’t received any indication from WSOP to that effect.
All US states with regulated online gambling require operators to implement geolocation technology. This is supplied by third parties like Geocomply, Xpoint, or Radar.
These companies’ technology is more sophisticated than standard IP-based location tracking and is impossible to circumvent with virtual private networks. That ensures that only players physically within the state can place bets.
Because the technology is optimized to prevent false negatives, however, false positives plagued the first wave of legal US online gambling sites in 2013. Within a couple of years, however, they had mostly been resolved. Memories of that era may have fueled the assumption that this was the underlying cause of the problem.
The World Series of Poker and WSOP.com were acquired by GGPoker owner NSUS last year. However, only the Ontario WSOP site uses the GGPoker platform. The US-facing network continues to use technology supplied by Evoke (formerly known as 888).
Over 20 Online Bracelet Events Remain
The first-ever online WSOP bracelet was awarded ten years ago, at the 2015 series. There was only one online event that year, but the schedule has been expanding ever since.
This year’s slate includes 30 online bracelet events. The first six went off without a hitch, and registration remains open for Event #8, a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Freezout starting tonight.
