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COVID-19 Surge Forces Postponement of WPT bestbet Scramble

  • bestbet Jacksonville sited a “resurgence of COVID-19” as the reason for postponing
  • The United States has hit new daily case numbers it hasn’t seen since February
  • Florida has reached record numbers of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations
  • The WPT was among the first to cancel tournaments last year because of the pandemic
  • Live WPT events have flourished so far in 2021
Dan Katz

Dan Katz graduated with a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Emory University. He clearly uses neither of those degrees now, having been writing about the gambling industry (specializing in poker) since 2005. Prior to that, he was an IT and management consultant. He is an avid gamer, primarily on PC, and enjoys collecting retro video games and consoles; finding room to set them all up is his current challenge. Dan lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two children. You can get in touch with Dan at [email protected].

bestbet Jacksonville poker felt
The bestbet Jacksonville casino has postponed the WPT bestbet Scramble poker festival because of a massive surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the area. [Image: WPT/Flickr.com]

New dates yet to be determined

As new COVID-19 cases sweep across the United States and the state of Florida, in particular, the bestbet Jacksonville casino has decided to postpone the upcoming WPT bestbet Scramble festival. Though the World Poker Tour has yet to make a formal announcement (aside from a “POSTPONED” notation on the Main Tour schedule), bestbet Jacksonville did so on Twitter on Monday:

The casino immediately received criticism for putting off the event while at the same time keeping the rest of the casino, including poker games, open. bestbet Jacksonville likely determined that its regular number of guests in the poker room was manageable, but the influx that was expected for the WPT event was not, as far as COVID-19 safety was concerned.

There have also been rumors that the postponement was because either a) the casino was worried about a lack of participants and thus having to pay overlay, or b) the casino could not find enough dealers. The former has no merit, while the latter is always a possibility, though it would be odd for bestbet Jacksonville to not simply explain that this was the reason and that it stemmed from the pandemic.

The person who runs the casino’s Twitter account said that they are working on reconfiguring the tournament schedule.

Florida is COVID-19 central

After seeing COVID-19 cases decline precipitously in the first half of the year, aside from a slight rise in the spring, cases are exploding throughout the United States and especially in Florida. Nationwide, the seven-day moving average of new daily cases is 81,300, the highest mark since the middle of February.

Florida, specifically, is a mess. Its seven-day moving average of new cases is 21,683, the highest it has ever been, higher than it was during the peak of the pandemic, the peak of testing, and before widespread availability of vaccines.

Florida has set another record for COVID-19-related hospitalizations at 11,515

According to data released by the US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, Florida has set another record for COVID-19-related hospitalizations at 11,515. Fortunately, while hundreds of people in US are still dying each day from the virus, death rates are lower than they used to be because vaccinations help prevent serious illness.

Possible reasons for the explosion of COVID-19, and the delta variant specifically, vary in Florida. The summer vacation season has had people flock to the state while at the same time oppressive heat may have caused people to gather indoors more frequently. Vaccination rates, while not bad compared to the rest of the country, are still nowhere close to where they need to be to achieve herd immunity. Additionally, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been one of the staunchest opponents of mitigation plans throughout the pandemic, even going so far recently as to threaten to take funding from public school districts should they require students and staff to wear masks.

2020 redux?

World Poker Tour events were some of the first to be canceled last March as the seriousness of the pandemic was realized in the United States. To fill the live poker void, the WPT and other tournament organizers both moved tourneys online and created all new internet-only festivals.

The World Poker Tour launched the WPT Online Series in May 2020, the WPT World Online Championships in July 2020, and the WPT Online Poker Open in December. All were held on partypoker, the latter in New Jersey. Both the WPT Online Series and WPT World Online Championships were revived this year.

The WPT was also the first to bring back major live tournament action with the WPT Venetian in early March of this year. Since then, live tournaments have been extremely popular. April’s WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown (also in Florida) broke the all-time World Poker Tour record, attracting 2,481 entries. The previous record belonged to last year’s WPT Online Championship, which drew 2,130 players.

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