Poker history was made on July 3rd, 2012, at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, when 48 of the highest rollers on the planet each paid One Million Dollars to participate in The Big One for One Drop poker tournament. The tourney raised $5.3 million (just over 11% of the buy-in) for the non-profit organization One Drop, which works to provide safe drinking water worldwide.
The winner of the tournament, professional poker player Antonio Esfandiari, won a platinum bracelet worth about $350,000 and a cash prize of $18 million. The second place player had to settle for a measly $10 million cash prize. Poker legend Phil Hellmuth finished fourth and won over $2 million, which was a bigger cash prize than any single poker tournament he has won in his entire 19-year career.
This was by far the highest staked poker tournament event in the history of ever. You can't even adjust the buy-ins of past tournaments for inflation and come close to it. Only the fictitious poker tournament in Casino Royale had a bigger buy-in ($10 million). And, by the way, at least one of the players at the The Big One was a hedge fund manager, so there might have been some real-life James Bond villains playing.
The only reason this many non-fictional players agreed to risk so much non-fictional money was because it was a fundraiser for a charitable organization.
To sum up: Damn.
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