The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the world's longest running poker tournament, beginning nearly 40 years ago in 1970. It is also the largest, richest, and most prestigious gaming event in the world. Over the years, the WSOP has awarded over $1 billion in prizes and expanded to include online poker games and tournaments. The prestigious WSOP gold bracelet is widely recognized as the top prize in poker. In December 2008, the WSOP was named 7th most admired sports brand in North America by the Turnkey Sports Survey, led only by older, more established sports properties: the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR and PGA Tour.

The most well known WSOP tournament takes place each summer in Las Vegas at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, featuring buy-ins from $1,000 to $50,000. The WSOP Europe tournament takes place each fall in London, with buy-ins ranging from £1,000 to £10,000. A traveling tour, the WSOP Circuit tournaments, run annually from October through May and visits several Harrah's Casinos throughout the United States. Buy-ins start as low as $200 for WSPO Circuit events. More than 60,000 players from 115 countries entered the 2009 tournament in Las Vegas.

The WSOP tournaments feature a wide variety of poker games such as: Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, HORSE, Lowball, Shootouts, Hi-Low games, Pot Limit and No Limit, Heads Up, Six-Handed, and Mixed events. Tournaments are available for each of these games, so those who are seasoned in just one style of poker can enter and play. Players choose which tournaments to enter; a schedule of all WSOP-branded live poker events is available on WSOP.com. Anyone who is old enough and can meet the buy-in requirement is eligible to enter and win. Several thousand players enter the Las Vegas tournament each year.

For those players who are into online poker, WSOP.com allows people to play poker online for fun as well as enter tournaments for cash prizes. These online poker gamesallow players who cannot travel to a live tournament to enjoy the fun from the comfort of their own home. Aside from the poker games, the WSOP website offers current poker news and player information along with information on the history of the game and the tournament itself.

Poker Hall of Fame Member Jack Strauss once said, “All you need is a chip and a chair.” Think you can handle it?