Poker payouts can be very confusing whether its the amount of spots paid, or the percent paid to the players. Learning how poker payouts came about, you have to know where it all started. If you go to Las Vegas you certainly will come across a casino called Binions Horseshoe. Binions is the venue at which the World Series of Poker or simply “WSOP” is held. The owner of the casino Benny Binion was a marketing genius, coming up with an idea to have a winner-take-all poker tournament.

This was a new idea that no one had ever heard of. Before this, the players themselves would designate how the money is split-up. A player designating the split of pots isn’t the same way it happens today. The standard chip designation was 25% of your chips would go to the player, and the other 75% would be taking to the cage and exchanged for cash.

In 1977, a legal investigation was conducted, because the idea of a winner-take-all tournament had been fabricated and the distribution of prize money, and operating procedures were grounds for action. The standard procedure was the 25/75 split of the chips. However, the federal broadcasting law wasn’t enforced like it was on the rigged quiz show “twenty one”.

Popular television network CBS was put in a rather odd position, after it drummed up its own version of the winner-take-all tournament. This tournament was in tennis, and featured tennis stars Jimmy Conners and Rod Laver in the finals. Connors and Laver would play a great final match only split the prize money. With Conners and Laver splitting the spoils, CBS was fined by the FCC and required to issue a public apology.

Splitting the money between the players was over in 1978 when Benny Binion told everyone that he was paying the top five. Benny did this cause he realized that it was only a matter of time before the FBI would conduct an investigation into the payouts at his tournament.

A new payout structure was introduced at the 1978 World Series of Poker tournament by Benny Binion. The top five players who participated in the main event of that year all received a payout. Binion paid the top five players in the World Series of Poker main event until 1981. He began to pay the last nine players. Paying the last nine players lasted until 1986. The number of entrants entering the World Series of Poker tournament was 141. It forced Benny Binion to expand his payout structure again.

With the field on the rise, the WSOP would set records in upcoming years in not only attendance but payouts as well. Chris Moneymaker was the first to set the new standard in winnings, in 2003. In 2004, Binion paid out 225 players. In 2005, 560 were paid, and in 2006, 873 cashed in.

As you can see the WSOP has payout structure has grown very rapidly over the years, just like the game’s popularity. The game now is being shown on ESPN which is the largest sporting network in the world on television. The WSOP has become a huge phenomenon. Its pretty hard to imagine having these types of fields back in the 1970’s, but it is growing every year and now is well over 1,000 entrants.