First Franco-Spanish SCOOP from PokerStars Draws Big Numbers

April 20th, 2018 | by Kaycee James

The first French and Spanish Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) has proved to be a hit after the 100+ tournaments attracted buy-ins worth more than $12 million.

PokerStars celebrates as its first Franco-Spanish Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) exceeds expectations. (Image: fromapastorsheart.com)

Running between March 25 and April 9, the online festival was PokerStars’ proverbial coming out party in the newly merged Franco-Spanish market. After going live in January 2018, PokerStars launched a new series to mark the occasion.

Known as FRESH (France Espania Hold’em), the series guaranteed €5 million ($6 million) across 50 scheduled events and eventually say that figure eclipsed by more than $1.3 million.

Fresh Faced Tournaments Prove a Hit

Fresh off its first successful festival, PokerStars put together a Franco-Spanish version of its international SCOOP series. After guaranteeing $12.2 million and more than 100 tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $60 to $300, the organizers have reported a better than expected turnout.

Calculating the final figures, the online poker site’s PR put out a press release on April 19 announcing a final prizepool of $14.4 million.

When the main events came to a close on April 9, it was a Spanish double as __elembolo and Sytoamd stood as the final two players. For the former, a $36,880 payday brought SCOOP to a successful conclusion while the latter banked $144,307.

PokerStars Leading Shared Liquidity Market

For PokerStars, the recent tournament action has resulted in a spike in traffic according to PokerScout’s stats. Following recent weekly peaks topping the 3,000-player mark, PokerStars Europe now has a 24-hour average of 2,529.

Although something of an isolated example, the news would suggest shared liquidity between France, Spain and, eventually, Portugal and Italy will prove to be a positive.

With all four countries struggling under the weight of dwindling player numbers and taxation, the decision to share playerpools had become a necessity. For now, PokerStars efforts have shown that sharing has its benefits even if it might not be as easy for smaller operators to achieve the same levels of success.