Melbourne playing host to history's richest poker tournament

Melbourne, Jan.27 (ANI): The Australian city of Melbourne, and not Las Vegas or the Caribbean, is playing host to the world and history's richest poker tournament.

Boasting some of the world's top players, the Aussie Millions "Super High Roller" event costs a staggering 250,000 Australian dollars to buy in, news.com.au reports

The event saw 20 players take their place on the felt at midday today. The Crown's executive manager of table games, Sean McCreery, said the amount of entrants took him by surprise.

"We were confident for eight but 20 players is quite unexpected," McCreery was quoted, as saying.

The winner of the high-stakes event will take home 2.5 million dollars with the second and third place players taking 1.5 dollars and1 million dollars respectively.

Famous faces, including Shane Warne took part in a celebrity Aussie Millions event yesterday.

Today's event features the biggest name of the poker circuit, including the so-called "Tiger Woods of poker", Phil Ivey.

Annette Obrestad, a 22-year-old professional poker player from Norway, is the only female in the tournament. (ANI)