More than $2 million was guaranteed in the inaugural running of the PokerStars Ontario Championship of Online Poker (ONCOOP). In the end, the series did better than initially promised. Despite ten canceled games, over two-thirds of the events exceeded their guarantees.
The recent ONCOOP was perhaps the most anticipated tournament series in the new market of Ontario, Canada. The PokerStars Ontario app came online in mid-2022 and fired up a few series right off the bat. Still, all eyes in the market were on the potential regional introduction of PokerStars’ premier tournament brand, COOP.
When the announcement came, it was an open question whether the new Ontario online poker market could hit the ambitious guarantee of $2 million. When the dust settled, however, the total money collected came marginally ahead of the promised totals with about $2.066 million in collected prizes and, after making up some overlay, total prizes of $2,153,848.
That means the operator collected over 3% more than the guarantees by the end of the series, with the total prizes coming in at almost 8% above the guarantees. PokerStars had to shell out just under $90k to cover overlay on the games that didn’t quite hit their guarantees, but made that up with more than $150k in fees through the series for a modest profit.
Nearly 30k Ontarians Take Part in First ONCOOP.
The first running of a major series in a new market is always a bit of a question mark before the action gets underway, but poker series don’t get much bigger than PokerStars’ COOP brand. As a regional counterpart to a prominent global brand, PokerStars Ontario should be happy with its first running of ONCOOP.
By the time the series ended, nearly 30,000 entries were recorded across 132 events. 99 games came in above their guarantees, while 33 tournaments missed the promise, including 10 games that were ultimately canceled and buy-ins returned.
With $2,066,430 collected, the series came in 3.30% above the guarantees for money collected and 7.67% ahead based on total prizes awarded (including overlay paid but excluding guarantees on canceled events) — the $153,275 collected in fees more than covered $87,418 in required overlay payments.
2022 ONCOOP Summary
| Total Events: | 132 |
| Above Guarantee: | 99 |
| Below Guarantee: | 23 |
| Cancelled: | 10 |
| Total Entries: | 28,941 |
| Total Gtd: | $2,000,450 |
| Total Collected: | $2,066,430 |
| Total Prizes: | $2,153,848 |
| Total Fees: | $153,275 |
| Total Overlay: | $87,418 |
There were a few games that did exceptionally well. The biggest game in terms of guarantee multiplier was ONCOOP 21-L. The $20 8-game event guaranteed $1500 but ultimately collected more than $3200 in prizes for an increase of almost 115% over the guarantee. ONCOOP 4-L was also a powerful performer, with $2688 collected on a $1500 guarantee, for an increase of nearly 80%.
While the low games provided the two most significant increases over the guarantee, ONCOOP 45-H featured high on the list. The $200 tournament saw 79 entries for a total prize pool of $14,734, 73.34% above the guarantee of $8500.
The biggest prize pool of the series came from ONCOOP 61-H, the $500 Main Event. That pinnacle of the series had $200,000 guaranteed, but that number was not reached. Thus, the $200k prize pool stood as the biggest of the series. ONCOOP 14-H had the second-biggest prize pool at $80,220, more than $5k above the $75k guarantee.
Over on the low side, the two biggest prize pools came in games that didn’t make the guarantee. Among those was the $50 Main Event Low, which missed its guarantee by about 18% and awarded $40k.
Despite some issues that saw several games canceled throughout the series, it would be hard to characterize the first running of ONCOOP as anything but a success. Over 28,000 entries demonstrated the hunger for poker in the new Canadian market. Even with the cancelations and the overlaid events, the final numbers should make both players and the operator in the newly opened Ontario online poker market quite happy.
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