How Poker Sports League is expanding the gaming landscape in India

The Poker Sports League (PSL) has once again cemented its position as India’s most prestigious poker event. Mind Sports League (MSL), the parent company of Poker Sports League, has launched its latest season. For this latest season, the company has welcomed Poker 52 as its title sponsor. With an extraordinary 9,547 unique entries during the qualifying rounds, the Season 5 qualifiers broke all records for unique participation in a poker event in India.

In an interaction with Adgully, Pranav Bagai, CEO, and Co-founder of Poker Sports League, and Nitesh Salvi, Director and Founder Pocket52, speak at length about the idea behind PSL Season 5, how PSL has evolved over the past few years, brand partnerships/  sponsorships, and more. 

What sets Poker Sports League apart from other online gaming leagues? Could you explain the idea and concept behind PSL Season 5?

Pranav Bagai: If you think about any other gaming League, it is always only for the professionals. However, the Poker Sports League is different from any other league globally, in that we have six teams, with each team having 12 players. Six of these are the best players in the country, they are the best captains, coaches, all our top players, but the other six are what separate us from every other league. The other six can be you. So, if you know how to play poker, you could have been a part of PSL Season 5 as well.

Nitish Salvi: Overall, online gaming has been growing tremendously for the last couple of years. And we as a platform are continuously working towards making a better platform for our users. Poker Sports League is a platform where all players – from professional to everyone who is playing as a recreational player – have a chance to compete and show their skills and be a winner. We overall selected 34 qualifiers, who are now part of the team, besides three women qualifiers, who are also getting a chance to become part of the team.

PSL Season 5 has a whooping prize money of Rs 1.5 crore. How do you plan to attract your participants and what can the players expect from this season?

Pranav Bagai: There are two parts to it. One of them is the qualifier. The prize pool gets split amongst the top three teams – Rs 75 lakh is the first prize, Rs 50 lakh is for the team that comes second and Rs 25 lakh is for the team placed third. Thirty-seven unique players came and played the tournaments on Pocket 52. These 37 obviously get a prize because they get to be a part of the League. What Pocket 52 has added to this is that it has given these 37 players another Rs 15,000 worth of tournament tickets. PSL Season 5 got over on June 25, you can’t be a part of PSL through Pocket 52 anymore. But total assured prizes worth Rs 50 lakh were given to the top 1,000 out of the 9,537 people that played.

Nitish Salvi: The second phase started from July 22 onwards, where all the teams will compete for about three weeks. They will play at a live finale in a live location for about five days. And that’s where we will get the final three teams, which will get the prize money. So, that is how the Rs 1.5 crore is going to get distributed among the top three teams out of the top six teams who will compete for almost three weeks – first online on Pocket 52 and then at a live location.