by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Apr 11, 2012 | Updated on Apr 11, 2012Around the world, tournament buy-ins keep getting bigger and bigger. At many major tournaments, there are now high roller events that regularly see buy-ins of $100,000 or more. Next year’s World Series of Poker will feature a $1 million buy-in event that will benefit charity and likely award the largest prize in WSOP history. And now, high stakes real money poker is coming to Asia as well, as the Philippines is set to host a HKD $1 million buy-in tournament known as Manila Millions next week.That figure may sound a little bigger than it actually is, but we’re still talking about a whole lot of money if you want to play in this event. The buy-in is the equivalent of US $129,000, or a little under €100,000. But while that may not be extraordinarily high for many high-roller events around the world, it’s the largest buy-in tournament ever held in Asia, a market where the poker culture is still developing rapidly.The tournament will be held as part of the Asian Poker Tour’s stop at Resorts World Manila. The APT Philippines side event will take place on April 20th.“The Asian Poker Tour and Resorts World Manila are going to make poker history once again,” said Jeff Mann, CEO of the Asian Poker Tour. “A buy-in of this magnitude will put the Philippines on the world poker map.”Not surprisingly, the buy-in has already attracted attention from the biggest names in poker, and several top players have already confirmed their participation. These include the recently active Phil Ivey, and high-stakes gambler Tom Dwan, who is known as “durrrr” in online poker circles.The tournament will be a part of the APT Philippines tournament series, which includes a $2,700 buy-in main event. The Asian Poker Tour has run tournaments throughout Asia since 2006, when the tour held its first ever event in Singapore.
