PokerStars is synonymous with clever tournament promotions throughout the year. This time, the poker operator launched a Monday Jackpot promotion that will see Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey players win attractive prizes.
The tournament is also considered a weekly progressive guarantee whose prize will increase every time it hits. In other words, last week's players will determine how high the guarantee for the following week will get.
PokerStars has introduced a way to encourage players to register early in the tournament. Ideally, players joining the tournament early will get random incentives. The operator will also choose a random table within the first two hours of the tournament to give $1000 in prizes.
Details of the Monday Jackpot
The Monday Jackpot is a 9-handed tournament with unlimited entries. Each player will get a stack of 10,000 to start with. Anyone can afford the buy-in as it is just $10, while the blinds will go up every eight minutes.
Michigan and New Jersey will have a shared pool of $5,000, while Pennsylvania players have a guarantee of $3,000 to win. This is after the poker operator joined Mi and NJ pools a while ago, leaving PokerStars PA operating as a standalone network.
It is unclear how much PokerStars will allow the guarantee to rise. But, based on the inauguration of the Monday Jackpot event, this tournament will leave most players winners.
For instance, the Michigan and New Jersey event attracted 571 unique entrants and 308 re-entries. This created a prize pool of $8,000, exceeding the guarantee by 60 percent.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania event attracted 340 unique entrants and 137 re-entries, creating a prize pool of $4340. This was 45 percent more than the guaranteed prize.
The second Monday Jackpot event is scheduled for March 6. Its guarantees may be increased by at least $1,000.
Monday Jackpot festival is not an original idea at PokerStars. The poker operator first launched the tournament in its Italian market in 2022. Instead of hosting the event every Monday, the operator hosted the tournament once a month, featuring the same buy-in and a guarantee of €50,000.
The event ran as a progressive tournament, with the guaranteed prize rising to €120,000. Unfortunately, the poker operator had to drop the guaranteed figure back to five figures in November 2022. This figure is still rising because as of February 26, 2023, the prize had risen to €80,000.
Progressive Guarantee is not a New Concept
PokerStars is not the first operator to offer progressive prize pool tournaments. Brands such as Merge Gaming and WPN also ran similar tournaments where they would increase the prize pool once the previous guaranteed prize was met.
World Series of Poker (WSOP) also ran a similar event in 2020 in New Jersey and Nevada. The Keep It 100 $100,000 guarantee event featured a progressive freeroll. The poker operator would add $5,000 to the prize pool every time players met the guarantee.
888poker also tried this concept but modified it a little. The idea was for the operator to set a target prize pool before a tournament kicked off. If players hit the target, the prize pool target would increase by ten percent the following week.
If not, every player would get back the buy-in fee they paid. Unfortunately, the Rake or Break tournament of 888poker in 2019 was discontinued soon after it launched.
