It was kind of like a WPT alternative for players who couldn’t afford the buy-ins featured by the latter, and it stayed that way for its first few seasons (seasons 1 to 3 actually). Pretty soon it became obvious though that the EPT had outgrown its creator’s wildest expectations and its popularity soon became a problem. Hosting casinos soon found themselves in the position of not being able to cope with the influx of players, which led to the buy-ins being re-sized. That, in turn, led to an increase in the amount of prize money offered.

This way, the EPT soon caught up with the WPT prestige-wise, and it lost its appeal of being a smaller and more accessible set of events.

The EPT is the creation of John Duthie, who nowadays is a commentator for the show together with Colin Murray. The show’s hosts were: Kara Scott, Natalie Pinkham and Caroline Flack.

As said before, the EPT features much the same structure that made the WPT famous, with slight exceptions. One such exception is that the EPT accepts 8 players to its final tables, unlike the WPT which caps this number at 6.