Most high stakes tournaments have several weeks of qualifying games before the final players get to take a shot at the big prize.

But before you can jump into the final high stakes game, you’ll go through the qualifiers. Held every May, it’s the world’s most prestigious blackjack event with a grand prize of, what else, a million bucks.

The Las Vegas Hilton Million-Dollar Tournament In the last season Ben Mezrich and John Fugelsang were also added. The show is annually hosted by blackjack hall of fame member Max Rubin and Matt Vasgersian. The second season was held at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas where another professional, Ken Einiger came away with the increased $250,000 prize. Previously the first tournament was held at the Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort with MIT Mike who took away the first season prize of $100,000 in 5 instead of the now standard 8 games. Each year the tournament is located at a new casino and produced by the Game Show Network with a growing cash prize pot of today’s 1 million dollars. The World Series of Blackjack is the most prestigious example having finished the third year (or ‘season’ in TV talk) at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Now that the television media and general public have caught onto the thrill of black jack tournaments, there is a whole new field of established tournaments that have been tapped to satisfy the growing demand.

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