On several occasions poker players have called on their peers to boycott the venue because of his seemingly hypocritical stance on online gambling. The poker community has for a long time had a combative relationship with the Venetian due to the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands parent group, Sheldon Adelson, being a high profile enemy of online poker. If you care even a little about the future of poker, DO NOT play this event. The $150,000 MAXIMUM buyin event from the is a disgrace. We need to stand AGAINST terrible poker formats that harm the poker playing community through excessive rake. Not for the first time the hashtag #BoycottTheVenetian has trended on Twitter. The consensus seems to be that this event has the potential to take a lot of money out of the collected prize pool and is a stealthy way of charging more rake. The poker community is not happy, however, with this idea. The tournament director Tommy LaRosa has stated the total prize pool will be $225,000 when the additional promotions are included. In addition to the $150,000 total prize pool there are $52,000 in additional prize draws taking place during the event. The Venetian is seemingly betting against the players that the prize pool will go above $150,000. It's an interesting idea, given how much poker players like reduced rake and big guarantees. The event has six starting flights so getting to that figure of 600 looks highly likely. Regardless of the final numbers, the prize pool will be $150,000, if it attracts over 600 players the Venetian makes a profit, if it attracts less they pay an overlay. Indeed, the structure sheet states that any amount over the $150,000 prize pool will go to the Venetian (the event is otherwise a rake free re-entry tournament).

That sounds particularly exciting, until you discover that if the event attracts over 600 players, beating that lofty figure, the prize pool remains at $150,000. Their upcoming $250 buy-in Lucky Shot Poker Series has a 'Total Prize Pool' of $150,000.

As we have written before, there are not many things more blasphemous to poker players than welching on a guarantee. This week the Venetian did something very unusual with their prizepool for an upcoming tournament which could be considered not in the interests of the players.

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