Why is the WSOP Seniors Event so popular?

Once again the Seniors Event at the WSOP broke records, attracting 4,425 players. Barry Carter asks if we should be surprised about this?

2014 champion Dan Heimiller

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the WSOP (almost every year) is the continued success of the $1,000 Seniors Event. It seems every year it grows, breaks records and exceeds expectations.

Poker is promoted very much as a young man's game, but the Seniors Event reminds us otherwise. It has increased in size every year since the poker boom in 2003, where it had 378 runners, right up to the 4,425 of this year. 

I can't help but think that the growth of the Seniors Event goes a little under-reported every year, considering how much talk there is that poker is in decline. When you look at the numbers for this event, it suggests anything but. In fact, this year has seen the start of a Seniors Poker Tour to capitalise on this growing market. 

So why is it that this event, exclusively for players aged 50 and over, is so incredibly popular?

A growing demographic

The growth of the Seniors Event

Number of runners per year: 2003 - 378 2004 - 509 2005 - 825 2006 - 1,184 2007 - 1,882 2008 - 2,218 2009 - 2,707 2010 - 3,142 2011 - 3,752 2012 - 4,128 2013 - 4,407 2014 - 4,425

The first point to make is purely about the logistics of the event. With every year that passes, more people turn 50, so by default there are more potential players for the Seniors Event.

Of course, it is a fact of life that many of the target audience for the Seniors Event will also pass away or become no longer able to travel to play poker, but nowhere near at the same rate as those who turn 50 every year, what with the average life expectancy increasing every year.   

We have a short memory in poker, and often we mistakenly see 2003 as when the game was born. However, not only has poker as we know it been popular for decades, poker also went through a smaller boom in the mid-late 1990s, thanks to things like the invention of the hole card camera, Late Night Poker and Rounders. 

A lot of players who discovered poker in the 1990s will now be around the sort of age that would play in the Seniors Event. In fact, with every Seniors Event that takes place, you tend to see more familar names making deep runs; players who were the young guns back in the early days of televised poker and the first ones to become famous through poker (And interestingly, next year we will see a certain Mr Hellmuth make his Seniors debut). 

A recreational bracelet event

Hellmuth can play next year

A very important factor has to be pricing. At $1,000 this is one of the cheapest events to enter and that makes a huge impact on the numbers. We have also seen a huge field for the $1,500 Millionaire Maker (7,977) and the first ever $1,000 PLO event (1,128). The mid-stakes poker market is tremendously strong and $1,000 is a buy-in amount that most people can rationalise as a once a year indulgence. 

Especially because the Seniors Event is one of those tournaments that has a pseudo-Main Event type significance for its players. Those of us who can't justify $10,000 once a year on a single tournament give a lot of personal importance to certain tournaments that feel like a budget Main Event - I'm thinking the Casino Employees Event, the Womens Event, the Millionaire Maker and maybe the Little One for One Drop. 

The buy-in also reflects something else worth noting about the Seniors Event, that it is one of the few truly recreational bracelet events. You can expect a very high concentration of pros and aspiring pros even in the $1,500 events, but poker (especially online poker) was not a conceivable career choice for anyone aged 50 today. Not only is the Seniors Event less shark infested, it is also known for being much more sociable. 

This has been quite a controversial topic for a number of years now. The stereotype is that the typical player under 30, who has played mostly online, is introverted at the table. Whereas the older, recreational player, is much more social. While I could easily find evidence to the contrary in both cases, there is no doubt this is largely true. Anyone who has played or worked near the Seniors Event will tell you it is the most talkative event of the calendar year. 

Finally, perhaps the reason why the Seniors Event is so popular is because it is a rare opportunity for poker nostalgia. Before the internet and before the game got so tough and aggressive. I'm not saying the Seniors Event is softer (It will be, but probably not as much as we think) and there is no doubt that the older players have gotten more aggressive, but the general tone and feel of the event will the nearest thing to how poker was before the boom as you will get today. 

I for one love hearing about the continued success of this event for the 50s and over. Not only is it a great sign of growth in the game, it is also a powerful reminder why we can't ignore this important poker demographic. 

Why do you think the Seniors Event so popular? Do you think the Seniors Event is unfair and ageist? Let me know in the comments box. 

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2. He has been working in the poker industry for nine years and in 2013 won the APAT Award for Best Poker Media Provider. You can learn more about his work here.  Follow Barry Carter on Twitter l Follow Barry Carter on Google+