The world of online poker has been evolving quickly. Technology has expanded rapidly, and interconnectivity has improved significantly since the early days of online poker. As such, the opportunity to play high stakes online poker has increased exponentially over the past decade. This has been evident in the prize pools that some of the biggest poker card rooms online have been offering.

In fact, high stakes online poker is no longer a taboo – it’s very much the norm, with seven-figure prize pools and hefty buy-ins often the askance price to enter such competitions. There have been several important changes to the high stakes online poker tournament landscape over the past 10 or so years, and we cover them in full.

The Technology to Make Tournaments Happen

The first and notable change that has occurred over the past years is the advance in the technology that underpins online poker tournaments. High stakes or regular events, players do appreciate the opportunity to play without technical snags and malfunctions, especially when they are about to win or bluff their way through a round.

More importantly, though – with the increase in interest, more people have begun turning up at online poker events. These tournaments once featured dozens, or hundreds of participants at best. These days, it’s hard to find a proper high stakes tournament that is not attracting at least a couple of hundred players.

The high traffic and demand on platforms has meant for the industry to seek a way to create a robust performance that allows players to play reliably and safely without experiencing technical glitches, which is one of the biggest changes of the past several years. High stakes tournaments have been streamlined with many redundancies introduced to ensure that a player may join the online tournament and play it through to the end. 

Reputation for Hosting Great Online Poker Tournaments

Poker has been mostly practiced at land-based casinos over the past decades. This is why some players have even changed their residency to Nevada or New Jersey to play poker as a career choice. The advance of online poker rooms has meant that many players could choose to not relocate and focus on their online career.

Prior to participating in an online poker tournament with high stakes, though, a player must know that the website they choose is in fact a reputable and trusted place to play. This is why, many card rooms have spent the past decade building up their reputation as reliable and trustworthy places where you can play high stakes poker.

Many card rooms have won themselves a strong reputation by consistently delivering on excellent online poker tournaments with highs stakes, among which these real money poker sites, which have been hosting events weekly for the past decade. Players do prefer to stick with trusted online card rooms when it comes to high stakes poker, and the best card room make it easier to trust the entire premise of online poker to begin with. 

The Rise of the High Stakes Player

With more money going into online poker over the past decade, a particular breed of player has been borne. Meet the high roller, a high stakes poker player who will only or mostly play in events that have big stakes and even bigger prize pools. This is not a random development.

The past decade has seen many players come into a lot of money. With the proliferation of online poker, there have been many talented players making their mark on the poker world and taking the competitive scene by storm. An increasing number of people are now regarding a $10,000 buy-in for the World Series of Poker as a fair and reasonable sum to pay.

In 2022 alone, some 8,663 players decided to join the Main Event, which expects you to cough up five-figures for a chance to win $10,000,000 if you top the field. Online poker tournaments have been mostly trying to emulate this, although they still fall short of attracting the numbers the World Series of Poker Main Event does every year.

Regardless, the rise of the high stakes poker player is very much undeniable. Online poker has made poker more accessible, allowing players to build their bankrolls consistently and without additional pressure.

High Stakes Online Poker Tournaments More Accessible Than Ever

Poker is a game of skill where being a good player can get you through an entire tournament – because of this, high stakes online poker tournaments have become more accessible over the past decade. While the logic several years back was that in order to participate, you must pay up, exceptions for talented players have been made.

Many of the high stakes online poker tournaments these days will feature a number of satellite or feeder events that allow players to buy in small tournaments and gradually progress to high stakes competitions – often without paying anything. Free tickets are popular with online poker tournaments. 

In fact, many high stakes tournaments now offer free tickets and allow players to compete for sizable rewards even if those players had not paid any buy-in fees, but still on the condition that they have won qualifying events. In the meantime, online poker tournaments with high stakes have allowed many players to enter land-based events.

Many card rooms now run land-based and online poker tournaments, and they use their online satellites to award players with entry into the physical events. In a word, poker has become way more accessible – whether you have the money to pay upfront for a high stakes tournament or prefer to grind through the satellites to win a qualifying entry instead. 

High Stakes Is Part of the Future of Poker

High stakes events are now an indelible part of the future of online poker, and this is why there is bound to be more of these events taking place online. As players have come into more options to amass sizable bankrolls, there is demand for more high stakes poker than ever before. 

The opportunity to play in competitive high stakes events is one that tempts players from all over the world and now, with the proliferation of online card rooms, has made it possible to find such formats all over the world. In the coming years, high stakes online poker tournaments are bound to proliferate.

Published by HOLR Magazine.