Aussie Millions

The Crown Australian Poker Championship or "Aussie Millions" is the biggest poker tournament in the Southern Hemisphere. The tournament is staged annually at the Crown Casino complex in Melbourne, Australia. Crown Casino is the largest casino and poker room in Australia.

Poker at Crown was introduced in June 1997 with the first major championship, known as the Australasian Poker Championship, in July 1998. The Main Event was a $1,000 buy in Limit Hold’em tournament that attracted 74 entries with a $74,000 prize pool.

The Crown Australian Poker Championship or the ‘Aussie Millions’ as it became known, moved to January in 2001, attracting 40 entrants with a $5,000 buy in for a prize pool of $200,000. January 2003 saw the event go truly international, attracting a field of 122 entrants and a $1.2m prize pool.

In January 2005, the Aussie Millions reached new heights with a record 263 participants paying $10,000 each to enter the No Limit Hold’em Main Event, generating the biggest prize pool ever in the Southern Hemisphere of $2,630,000. Half the field was from overseas including players from New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, USA, Sweden, Holland, Canada, Italy and Lebanon.

In 2006 the Aussie Millions proved itself as one of the world’s top multi-million dollar Poker events when 418 players competed for a slice of the AUD$4,18,000 prize pool including some of the biggest names in the Poker world such as WSOP Champion Joe Hachem, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Kathy Leibert, Scott Fischman, Chip Jett, David Williams, Antonio Esfandiari, Mike Sexton, Tony G, Jesse Jones, Clonnie Gowan plus many more.

The 2007 Aussie Millions main event has again exceeded all expectations with player numbers increasing by over 70% to 747. The event was filmed by Fox Sports Network for the second consecutive year with high profile professional player Gus Hansen winning the event and collecting the $1.5 million first prize.