Swedish Player Ragnar Astrom Wins World Poker Tour in Venice

Last week, 397 players competed for more than $2 million in prize money in the first ever World Poker Tour® event in Italy, WPT Venice, powered by bwin.

The €4,000 tournament kicked off May 6 at Casino di Venezia with a diverse international playing field, including poker pros Carlos Mortensen, Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown, Surinder Sunar, Steve Sung, Patrick Bruel or Max 'the Italian Pirate' Pescatori.

After five days of play, 22-year old Ragnar Astrom took home more than $542,000, a $25,000 seat in the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas, and an official WPT bracelet on Sunday when he defeated fellow Swede, Martin Jacobson.

Jacobson received $325,000 as runner-up, and Frenchman Vincent Pasdeloup placed third to win $217,000, having reached the final table after qualifying for WPT Venice as a freeroll qualifier on bwin.

"This was our first event with World Poker Tour, and we are delighted with how well things worked out", said Manfred Bodner, Co-CEO of bwin.

"The combination of the online and offline player experience coupled with the information systems and being able to offer bets on the tournament adds a whole new dimension to both sides."

In addition to holding the event in the oldest casino in the world, bwin developed and introduced a Live Tournament Information System, which provided real-time streaming information such as leaderboards and bust-out updates throughout the tournament.

The May 10 final table was videostreamed live, and bets on the final table were offered on bwin.com, including overall winner bets, country bets and head-to-head bets.