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The Southern Europe Championship of Online Poker (SECOOP) was a first, and it was a great success to put it mildly. The event was backed by PokerStars and while it took a little to analyze the figures properly, the results are now here, and they are quite substantial.

SECOOP Wraps Up, Millions Disbursed

The SECOOP finished on November 12 and saw over $14 million dished out in cash prizes. It wasn’t a small tournament by any estimate. Across 149 events, players joined to participate in various competitions. The $12 million series guarantee turned out to be $2 million larger than hosts have expected and that’s definitely a good sign, especially when planning future events.

Turn-up was of course bigger than any on-site tournament could have mustered at any one point. With 38,000 entrants, it’s definitely an event that saw major interest from all across the region.

Naturally, the majority of players came from Spain, France, and Portugal, joining events with guaranteed $1 million and above in prizing money. The Main Event also attracted quite the substantial interest, with 5,215 people coming in to fight for the nearly $250,000 in reward money.

While not many of the gamers could be identified by their real names, as online nicknames took precedence, we found out that “Befuddled” from France, had managed to walk away with $196,444 from the competition, which was the bulk of the money, and a title that does mean something – the first SECOOP Main Event winner.

SECOOP Beyond the Main Event

With nearly 200 events taking place, there was something for everyone, including the Warm Up tournament and the Classico, which both commanded a very modest entry-level at $60 and $14 respectively. The events manged to amass $270,000 and $170,000 in prizing money, though, which was an amount rivalled by the Main Event and quite worth fighting for indeed.

The new shared European poker network has proven to be a large success so far, with PokerStars managing to successfully host an event that reunited poker players with a competitive flair. But that’s hardly all there is.

PokerStars have been dishing out great rewards to Europeans in a bid to increase the involvement and even break even with regulators, allowing the company to run more competitions and expand across the entirety of Europe. PokerStars have particularly hosted the FRESH series, Galactic Series and TRIO competitions, making significant efforts to bolster the popularity of the game across the entire continent.

We’ve hosted a variety of new series and it is amazing to see the support from our players. I want to thank everyone that has played in a shared liquidity offering for helping to create such a success. – The Stars Group Director of Poker Innovation Severin Rasset

SECOOP is de facto the latest installation in the world of tournaments backed by PokerStars. According to Severin Rasset, Director of Innovation and the man behind the majority of breaking news surrounding PokerStars these days, the company appreciates the support that it has received from its players. With SECOOP, PokerStars hopes to continue and support the game in one of its main bastions, Europe.