KOLKATA: Online poker site PokerStars launched in India Tuesday, declaring that over the course of its first week of scheduled tournaments prize pool guarantees on offer would cross Rs 7 million.
PokerStars India is planning to invest anywhere between Rs 200 million and Rs 300 million on its expansion in this market, Economic Times reports. Owned by the $5-billion The Stars Group, in collaboration with Sachiko Gaming, PokerStars India plans to spread its investments over the next two years to build brand awareness and to expand the category in India, Ankur Dewani, CEO of Sachiko Gaming, told ET.
How far the Rs 30 million will go remains a moot point though, considering that it is coming into the market a year after the Poker Sports League, promoted by Dabur’s vice chairman Amit Burman, Anuj Gupta (founder of poker portal Adda52.com) and Pranav Bagai (founder of India Poker Legend), launched. PSL’s promoters have declared they would be pumping in Rs 1.5 billion over the next eight years into the league with prize money alone for the second season up from Rs 15 million to Rs 36 million.
It’s not just the prize money that’s been upped, however, the second season of the league will have 12 teams, up from the nine it started with.
Meanwhiile, alongside the launch, PokerStars India announced it has signed Muskan Sethi, one of India’s top-ranked poker players and recent community award winner, as its first female PokerStars India Ambassador, and the second ambassador for the new site, joining Aditya Agarwal.
Widely considered to be India’s foremost female professional poker player, the New Delhi-based Sethi has gone from strength-to-strength since she first began playing poker in 2010. In 2014, Sethi qualified online for Episode 6 of the PokerStars.com TV show ‘Shark Cage’, which offered a first place prize of $1 million, where she competed against some of poker’s leading players including Liv Boeree and Jason Mercier. Sethi has approximately Rs. 75 Lacs in online tournament cashes and ~Rs. 30 lacs in live tournament cashes to her name.
Encouraged by her commitment to the game of poker, the Ministry of Women & Child Development in India recently honoured Sethi with the ‘Women’s Achiever Award’, which was bestowed by the President of India at an event celebrating the success of 100 Indian women earlier this year. Sethi has also recently been appointed as India’s Responsible Gaming Ambassador. Away from poker, Sethi is also a philanthropist and donates generous amounts to charities and other not-for-profit organisations.
Commenting on her appointment, Muskan Sethi said, I feel proud to be a spokesperson for poker in India and I really look forward to promoting this game of skill. Three years ago, I was in the Shark Cage in Barcelona, Spain and here I am now waving the flag for poker and PokerStars.IN. It is exhilarating to show that brains beat brawn at the poker table.”
