It appears that 2011 WSOP Main Event champion Pius Heinz will be sharing his $8.7 million prize will plenty of other people since a Russian poker staking had backed him. The company is called Pokeroff, and they have staked plenty of successful players in the past. Of course, its hard to get more successful than a WSOP Main Event winner, so Pokeroff most likely grabbed their biggest profit ever off of Heinz.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any details on how much money Pokeroff made because they’re a private company that’s tight-lipped about their success. But the Betfair poker blog did manage to catch up with an investor in Pokeroff named Max Katz. The Moscow native is also a poker player who has an eye for budding talent.
He spoke about their business by saying, “We have a closed community inside Pokeroff that people can participate in, and they can buy shares of players who are wanting to sell some action. We also actively look for people who are wanting to sell shares, then we publish the offer on the private website, and it is divided between the people who want a share of that particular player.”
As for Heinz, Katz didn’t give too many details about dollar figures, but he did tell Betfair, “Actually I cannot say the exact number and I would prefer for you to publish rumors because we like to keep the exact number secret, but yes we had a big share of Pius.”
Just a few months ago, we reported how the poker backing industry had been struggling somewhat – especially in the United States, where poker action was crippled after Black Friday (April 15th). However, it seems as if the business of poker staking is thriving on the international scene, and Pokeroff is one of the biggest beneficiaries.