It might be hard for most people to fathom, but there was a poker tournament recently that had a $1 million price tag. That’s right, you had to pony up a cool $1 million to enter the tournament.
Forty eight players entered the tournament. The entrants were made up of professional poker players and businessmen. Only the top nine finishers placed in-the-money, meaning the rest were out $1 million. Antonio Esfandiari, a professional poker player, finished in first and took home a massive $18,346,673.
One interesting facet to this tournament is that it donated a decent chunk of the buy-in (over $5 million) to the charity One Drop. Because of this, and the high-stakes buy-in, the tournament attracted wealthy businessmen. This gave the professionals more of an edge and even attracted investment companies who bought in part or all of certain professionals buy-ins.
So I don’t think I will be able to buy in to a $1 million poker tournament anytime soon (or ever), but I do want to play in the $10,000 World Series of Poker main event tournament that is held each year. It’s something that has been on my bucket list since I was seventeen years old, and likely will continue to sit on my list for quite some time since I don’t see how I can justify the purchase. The odds of losing your entire buy-in is incredibly high, since only 10% of the players “cash” or get money back.
There are certainly giveaways, or smaller satellite tournaments (i.e. 100 people buy in $100, winner gets a buy-in to the $10,000 main event) that give me options. In reality, though, it will likely be at least a decade before I can even entertain the idea of playing in the main event. I know this is also on J. Money’s (from Budgets are Sexy) bucket list as well. Anyone else have the main event on their list?
What’s on your bucket list that you just can’t justify purchasing? When do you think you will have the cash to check it off your list?
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I don’t have a bucket list but off the top of my head there is nothing I would want to do before I die that would ever be that expensive or out of reach. Most of the things I want to do someday have to do with traveling, which can be expensive but if its spread out over many trips it can be more manageable finacially
@Em23 True, there is a difference between going on 4 trips over the course of a decade, each costing $2.5k versus laying down $10k for a poker tournament where you are likely to not get any of that money back!
I think it’d be fun to be in the WSOP but I am not talented enough to get in the money most likely. Lucky, maybe, talented not really… Anywho if someone puts up my buy-in and travel for me i’ll give them half of my winnings :)
@Money Life and More Haha I don’t even think some pros could get people to pay an entire buy in if they are only 50% of the winnings ; )
I used to play poker all the time and would watch the WSOP on ESPN. I always thought it would be cool to try my luck at it, but that’s all it would be. Luck. Any Given Sunday though, you never know what could happen. I think the most expensive game I’ve played was like a $20 buy-in.
Oh and to answer your question. The most expensive thing on my bucketlist would be to buy a motocross track. It’s out of the question for now but I do plan on eventually buying about 40 acres of land and building my own track. I think within the next 10 years we will have the cash to do so.
@DebtnTaxes Yeah anyone can win at any time. Problem with WSOP is you would need to go on a very hot streak even if you are good because of the sheer number of people playing.
That would be so sick to have your own motocross track!