Raj Kundra promoted Viaan Industries has announced the launch of a new Online Team Poker League (OTPL) in a bid to promote e-sports and online poker in the country.
OTPL India, which will feature 30 city-based teams that will be given out to franchisees, will be played in the No Limit Texas Hold ’em format of poker on a special app designed by Viaan Industries.
Viaan Industries is selling franchisee rights for each team by charging an annual license fee of Rs. 55 lakhs, of which Rs. 10 lakhs is payable upfront and the balance payable quarterly. As per news reports, 15 teams have been sold by Viaan Industries till date and the company claims that the remaining 15 teams will be sold soon.
As per the format of the game announced by the company in a press release, every team will have eight players who will play Sit-N-Go tournaments online, twice a month, to top the leader board. The collective chip count of all team players will be added up, giving the monthly rankings of teams and monthly prizes. The team with the most chip count at the end of the season in November will win the cup and a prize money of Rs. 6.6 crores will be shared among the top eight teams.
Besides the annual prize money, there would be a monthly prize money of Rs. 60 lakhs each for all 11 months (totaling to Rs. 6.6 crores) of the tournament, which will be shared by the top six teams of the month.
While the first season will start in July and end in November, from the next year, it will be spread over January to November. The winning team will represent the country in the World Online Team Poker League to be held in December every year.
The company has claimed that besides India, it will be launching similar city-based OTPL events in other countries like USA, UK, Israel etc.
Besides OTPL, Viaan Industies already operates Match Indian Poker League (Match IPL) in collaboration with the International Federation of Match Poker (IFMP), where 10 city based teams compete against one another in the ‘match poker’ format for prize money and to win a spot to play in IFMP’s International leagues. The second season of the league was recently held in Kolkata.
Commenting on the launch of OTPL, Raj Kundra, the Chairman and Managing Director of Viaan Industries said in a statement, “After seeing the success of Match Indian Poker League we at Viaan Industries Ltd, created this IP to have a year long poker event to give the opportunity to more poker players to come forward and use this platform to showcase their skills. We have designed the app to support and promote OTPL worldwide. It will create an exciting Poker in a team format that’s never been seen or done before. In December we will have the World Online Team Poker League (WOTPL) where the league winners of every country will play against each other in a one-day online world cup event.”