Fancy backing Brunson? Invest in Ivey? Head on over to PartyBets.com then!
Friday 13th June 2008
PartyBets.com is pleased announce that betting on the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event is online. Initial markets posted include: to reach the final table, top British Isles player, top celebrity player, top European player, top past champion and the winning hand.
A PartyBets.com spokesman said: 'Phil Ivey has already been backed to reach the final table, exactly the same story as last year. Ivey himself is rumoured to have wagered between $2.5 million - $5 million that he will win a bracelet this year so it is no surprise that punters are latching on to him. In WSOP Main Event betting the trend is always that the big names get backed and their prices come in shorter than expected. Structuring a market on the main event is always hard as it is difficult to predict the number of runners and you will never have confirmed entry details. The best a bookmaker can do is give a large sample of players. Even then you have a massive field and it is hard to get enough money in any book to balance it out.'
'Some might say that it is a licence to print money but last year one Swedish online qualifier for Late Night Poker had a $100 speculative punt with PartyBets.com on Jon 'Skalie' Kalmar at 250/1 to make the final table and we took a bath on that one. Kalmar wasn't even certain to play in the event and qualified through a last minute satellite.'
Julian Gardner and Ram Vaswani are 18/1 joint favourites to finish top British Isles player. Actor James Woods, former tennis star Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and PartyPoker.com Women's World Open stars Jennifer Tilly and Shannon Elizabeth all lead the field at 5/1. Montel Williams, a recent member of Team USA at the Poker Nations Cup is 13/2 - he was chip leader at one point last year. Top European player is led by Gus Hansen as clear favourite, while the favourites for finishing as the top woman are predictably Premier League finalist Annie Duke and Jennifer Harman. As for the market on the top past Main Event champion, the 8/1 frontrunner is Phil Hellmuth.
