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The first seven figure pay day of the 2016 Aussie Millions has been won on Saturday with Fabian Quoss defeating a star-studded field to win Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge and top prize of AU$1,446,480.
With the Aussie Millions Main Event enjoying a rest day before the final table on Sunday, the attention of the Crown Poker Room was firmly focussed on the final table of the $100,000 Challenge. An event which started earlier in the week with 41 entrants (30 unique and 11 re-entries) was down to the final six players with Ben Tollerene, Fabian Quoss, Jason Mercier, Connor Drinan, Sam Greenwood and Fedor Holz forming a superb final table line up.
High stakes online crusher Ben Tollerene was the chip leader while German Fedor Holz was the short stack entering the day. Despite dressing in a dapper suit and bow tie, Holz was unable to turn things around as he was first to go. Holz was all in with K♥Q♠ but received no help against the pocket fours of Connor Drinan. Holz was in for three bullets in this tournament, which mean that his AU$281,260 prize resulted in a small loss for him on his investment.
Drinan was responsible for the next elimination as well when Sam Greenwood three-bet all in with A♣2♣. Drinan was priced in with his Q♣9♣ and the board of J♣6♦3♦4♦9♦ caught a pair of nines for Drinan to eliminate Greenwood in fifth place.
Drinan was in the thick of the action, and after distributing some of his chips around the table, he found himself in a tricky spot against Fabian Quoss. Drinan check-called two streets before leading on the river holding Q♣9♠ on a board of 7♣T♦J♣9♣6♣ with his queen-high flush. Quoss moved all in on the river to put Drinan to a decision that required the use of both of his timebreaker buttons. As the clocked ticked down to the final seconds, Drinan finally flicked out a call but discovered the bad news when Quoss tabled A♣2♣ for the nut flush. Drinan collected AU$441,980 for fourth place.
Quoss continued to dominate and he was responsible for also ending the run of Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier. From the button, Mercier raised with A♥8♥ before Quoss three-bet with K♠Q♦. Mercier moved all in and Quoss made the call. The board fell Q♠3♠3♥K♥2♦ and despite picking up a flush draw on the turn, the river bricked to leave Quoss' two pair to take down the pot and eliminate Mercier in third place.
Fabian Quoss would carry a handy chip advantage into heads-up play against Ben Tollerene and didn't give the American any spots to breathe. Tollerene landed one double up with pocket queens, but Quoss continued to grind down his opponent with a series of small pots.
In the end Tollerene was forced to make a stand for his last five big blinds with J♠T♦ but found himself dominated by Quoss' K♥J♥. The board bricked out 6♥4♦5♣5♥5♦ to eliminate Tollerene in second place and crown Quoss as the $100,000 Challenge champion!
After a fifth and a third place in the $250,000 Challenge at the Aussie Millions in 2013 and 2014, Quoss lands his first title 'Down Under' and a top prize of AU$1,446,480 to boost his career prize money to almost US$8 million.
Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge Results
1st Fabian Quoss (Germany) - $1,446,480
2nd Ben Tollerene (United States) - $924,140
3rd Jason Mercier (United States) - $602,700
4th Connor Drinan (United States) - $441,980
5th Sam Greenwood (Canada) - $321,440
6th Fedor Holz (Germany) - $281,260
The final table action will continue on Sunday with the final table of the Aussie Millions Main Event kicking off at 12:30pm local time. We'll have live updates from the final table in conjunction with the live stream at RunItUp.TV.
We hope you'll join us then!
Many were ready to pronounce online poker dead in Australia with last year’s passing of an anti-gambling bill, but things seem to have taken an unexpected turn for the better: The Stars Group acquired the Aussie sports betting site CrownBet for over $100 million; and recently, under their new leadership CrownBet bought the Australian branch of William Hill.
After being voted on multiple times in both chambers of the Australian legislature the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016 passed and became law at last in August 2016, much to the demise of the Australian poker community. The new law meant that companies holding international gambling licenses cannot provide service to people in Australia - they need to apply for a specific Australian license for that, a procedure that is impossible for a foreign-based company under current circumstances. Major poker rooms such as PokerStars and 888 left the Australian market swiftly in return.
However, on February 27th this year a solution seems to have been found: the parent company of PokerStars, The Stars Group - formerly Amaya - has acquired 62% equity share in the Australian sports betting site CrownBet, an online sportsbook already operating with a local gambling license. Stars paid US$117.7 million for the deal.
CrownBet, founded in 2014 is exclusively offering sports betting for their users, no poker is available to play yet - but that may very well change at some point. Many sportsbooks launched their own poker clients before - such as Unibet, Bet365 and William Hill - and with The Stars Group being involved, it seems more likely the Aussie betting site might do the same.
Stars Group CEO Rafi Ashkenazi had this to say about the deal in the press release:
“We are excited to enter the regulated Australian sportsbook market with CrownBet. CrownBet has become one of the fastest growing online sportsbooks in Australia through its strong management team, proprietary technology, mobile app, unique partnerships and market-leading loyalty program”.
CrownBet is fast growing indeed - their unaudited yearly revenue went from A$76.5 million in 2015 to A$204 million in 2017.
Matthew Tripp, the CEO of CrownBet since its founding in 2014 kept his position at the top after the Stars purchase. He was the one who was happy to announce CrownBet’s first new undertaking under the new ownership: they bought up William Hill’s Australian outpost for US$300 million.
'We made no secret about our plans to grow through the acquisition, and we're pleased to have prevailed here against stiff competition' - Tripp said about the bidding war that was ultimately won by his company against their Australian bookie competitors Sportsbet and Tabcorp.
William Hill representatives admitted that the recent new regulations necessitated the selling of their Australian branch, evidently.
But The Stars Group isn't disheartened by the new Aussie online gambling restrictions anymore, it seems, since they are back in the Australian market with the new major deals - the two totaling US$417.7 million.