PokerStars' Southern European tournament prize pool tops €75 million

More than 34,500 players across Spain, France, and Portugal got into the party spirit for two weeks of poker in PokerStars’ brand new ‘Carnaval’ Series, which ran from 3-18 February.

The new online tournament series broke its €10 million advertised guarantee to reach €11,233,484 across 166 events, bringing the total amount awarded since PokerStars launched a shared player pool in France and Spain in January 2018 to more than €75 million. France took first place for players getting into the Carnaval spirit, followed by Spain and then Portugal.

‘MEGACHIPLEADER1’ took the lion’s share of the €250 buy-in Main Event prize pool, which featured a €1 million guarantee, when the player topped a field of 3,905 to take home €123,376.

The Carnaval Series set the bar in a few key events. The closing ‘Masquerade’ tournament became PokerStars biggest ever €30 buy-in event in Southern Europe in terms of attendance, with 3,760 entries. Another highlight was the €225,000 guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up, which took place on 17 February. The €50 buy-in event attracted more than 5,000 entries, more than all other Warm-Up events in the Carnaval Series. ‘Vasudeva27’ from Spain took the title and a first prize of €30,000.

“To hit €75 million awarded in all of our shared liquidity series is an amazing achievement and we’d like to thank all the players in Southern Europe who have joined us at the felt over the past 13 months,” said Severin Rasset, Director of Poker Innovation and Operations at The Stars Group. “Our Southern European series have been really well received and it’s great to see Carnaval carrying on this trend.”