Asia Pacific Poker Tour expands presence in Australia

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Global Poker Tours today announced that the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), the region’s biggest tour, will expand its presence in Australia. As part of this expansion, the APPT will encompass the Australia & New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), which currently runs live poker events across the region. From 2016 onwards, all former-ANZPT events will join the APPT to create an international poker tour.

The ANZPT will host its last event in Melbourne from October 8-20, 2015. Last year’s ANZPT Melbourne Main Event broke the ANZPT record for largest tournament with a field of 516 players, creating a $A1,032,000 prize pool. There has been strong interest so far in this year’s tournament and every indication points to the last ANZPT being the largest held in the history of the tour.

The inaugural event for the new APPT Season 10 will be the APPT Aussie Millions which runs from January 13 to February 1, 2016 at the Crown Entertainment Complex, Melbourne, featuring the legendary $A10,600 Aussie Millions Main Event. APPT remains committed to live events in Australia and a second Australian APPT event is already in the planning for 2016.

APPT and ANZPT President Danny McDonagh said, “I have been very proud to be a part of the ANZPT. There have been many memorable stops including Darwin, Gold Coast Turf Club and Queenstown together with the big city venues such as Sydney and Melbourne. The tour has preserved the freeze out format in the $2,000 range, a decision vindicated by how popular the series has been with players. I hope ANZPT Melbourne at the fabulous Crown Melbourne complex can set a new prize pool record as ANZPT's final event, beating the million dollar prize pool achieved just last season.”