World Poker Tour Adds Spain Stop

World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) announced today that it has struck a deal with Spain’s largest casino operator, Grup Peralada, to create a new stop on the World Poker Tour at the Casino Barcelona.  The new stop will be inserted into the first half of Season 6, in October 2007. 

In addition to the WPT event, WPTE and Grup Peralada will look into other business collaborations, including internet poker in Spain, a televised Spanish tour featuring Grup Peralada venues, and regional WPT stops in South America and Portugal. 

Strangely, Steve Lipscomb, President and CEO of WPTE had this to say about the news: 

“This is a very important move for us as we continue to expand our business in the European market.” 

He is right in that it is a very important move, but “continue” to expand in Europe?  Maybe “start over” or “recover” would be a better way to put it.  The WPT just announced that it will not be taping the Grand Prix de Paris, taking the total number of WPT events in Europe before this new one to a nice, round zero.   

Hopefully, however, this will be the start of a trend for the WPT.  It is, after all, called the World Poker Tour.