Sponsored by the world’s biggest online poker site, Pokerstars, the European Poker Tour can also give itself a shiny new claim to fame - the world's richest poker tour in terms of both players and prize pools.

EPT 2008 outshone the World Poker Tour in terms of players and winnings, with an overall prize pool of almost EUR 55 million with 7,980 players from 97 countries. Last year’s winner - Team PokerStars Pro Netherlands member Pieter de Korver, beat 935 players to take the first prize of EUR 2.3 million.

The Pokerstars European Poker Tour in London will feature significant Pot-Limit Omaha and 8-Game events, as well as the High Roller event. The EPT London Main Event will likely be the richest tournament ever held in the UK.

When Harrah’s Entertainment acquired the World Series of Poker in 2004, the organization introduced a new award – Player of the Year. The first winner of the title in 2004 was Daniel Negreanu, and the list since includes poker icons Allen Cunningham and Erick Lindgren. This year is a little different. For the first time since its inception, the $10,000 buy-in Main Event will be counted in the standings, making all open WSOP gold bracelet events eligible for Player of the Year points.

If the decline of the poker industry was ever in question, the recent results by Lycos Inc should prove that this is definitely not the case.

The PokerStars Sunday Million is an epic battle that takes place each weekend awarding the winner around $150,000 to $200,000 in cold hard cash.