In its first year of sponsorship by Everest Poker; the 2008 World Series of Poker set new records of attendance with more than 58,000 registrations and for holding the largest prize pool ever seen in the history of the WSOP with over $180 million. In addition, the 2008 WSOP also gathered players from 118 countries, 31 more countries than the previous edition of the tournament.

Broadcasts of the 2008 World Series of Poker will kick off this week on the ESPN sports network and will be aired worldwide to over 300 million viewers. The WSOP is scheduled at 8:00 pm each Tuesday for the next 17 weeks; ESP is planning to broadcast a total of 33 hours of coverage that will end up with the broadcast of the "November Nine" final table on November 9^th and November 10^th. The episodes begin with Event # 1, which featured an impressive field and a thrilling final table that included Andy Bloch, Kathy Liebert, Mike Sexton, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, Mike Sowers and Nenad Medic, who finally walked away as the Event #1 champion, scoring its first WSOP victory and $794,112 for the first prize.