The WSOP organizers have announced that the top prize at the 2008 World Series of Poker main event will be $9.12 million, the second biggest in the history of the WSOP.  According to the tournament’s officials, a total of 666 players will get a share of the $64.3 million prize pool. The main event attracted a total of 6,844 players, almost 500 players more than the 2007 edition, but almost 2000 players less than the 2006 WSOP, when a total of 8,773 players paid the $10K entry to build a first prize of $12 million.

The WSOP representatives said they are satisfied with the number of entrants, which equal the event's average for the last five years. The number of entries decreased in 2007, after U.S congress approved a law that restricts Internet gambling including online poker in the United States. The law was mentioned as the main reason of the decline because fewer U.S. players could qualify for the main event through satellites offered by online poker sites.

"It's inevitable when you play on the global stage that we're on ... that you're going to be subject to different fluctuations at different times. The fact that we broke all of the records we set last year is terrific, but there may be years where we're up, years where we're down. Bottom line is that we're here for the long term and we're not going anywhere, and I don't know many poker properties that can say that." said World Series of Poker commissioner Jeffrey Pollack.

The Main event also attracted a troop of professional poker players including PokerStars.com pros Daniel Negreanu, Humberto Brenes, Greg Raymer, David Bach, Tuan Le, Kenny Tran, Doyle Brunson, Mike Caro, Robert Mizrachi, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, Luca Pagano, Phil Laak, Roland de Wolfe, David Pham, Erica Schoenberg, Ultimate Bet pros Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Joe Sebok, Gus Hansen, Phil Gordon, Josh Arieh, John Cernuto, Antonio Esfandiari and Men Nguyen.

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