PokerStars recently launched its special ‘Galactic Series‘ which was comprised of 186 events and saw a total of €16,973,768 in cash prizes being given out, making it the biggest online poker series ever for players in the Southern European market.
This new online tournament was launched to cater to the EU shared liquidity market involving France, Spain and Portugal.
The massive prize pool exceeded the original €15 million in guarantees by almost €2 million. The Galactic series saw 50,612 competitors with the Main Event drawing 6,430 players who battled for the €1.5 million guaranteed prize pool.
The online tournament ran from August 26th until September 13th and was well received by EU poker players.
French players really made their mark winning a total of 42 events while Spanish players won 30 events and Portugal claimed 20. The first title of the series went to “SpadeJack10” who won €24,864 by defeating the rest of the field in the Sunday Warm-Up. The Midnight Express event, which was the final event of the series, was won by Portugal’s “eduardo7673” who claimed €6,988 in prize money.
Some of the other highlights included the Sunday special which was held on September 2nd and featured a €350,000 guarantee. Super Thursday’s guaranteed prize pool exceeded the original estimate by nearly €100,000 while the €10 Classico events attracted 15,000 players over the three editions.
Expect More Events In The Future
PokerStars said that shared liquidity played a big part in the success of the Galactic Series. Severin Rasset, who is the director of Poker innovation and operations with The Star Group, the parent company of PokerStars explained how shared liquidity in these markets makes it possible to offer their players the best tournaments and the biggest prizes.
The next series for the Southern European market has not yet been announced but Rasset alluded to the fact that there will most likely be one in the near future. It looks like PokerStars has every intention of continuing to increase the allure of their product in the shared European poker market.
The Galactic Series followed in the footsteps of some other popular series in Southern Europe such as the Trio Series, the SCOOP which was held in France and Spain, as well as the France Espania Hold’em Series. All of those poker events surpassed their guaranteed cash prize pools which illustrates how successful PokerStars has become in Southern Europe.
