Americas Card Room revamps the beast with aim to reward more players

The Beast is getting more ferocious. Americas Card Room announced that they're doubling the number of winners on the weekly Beast leaderboard in an effort to reward more players. Currently, The Beast rewards approximately 400 players and that number will grow to 800 beginning February 29th.

"Starting this February, we invite more players to experience what The Beast has to offer," said Americas Card Room spokesperson Michael Harris. "We're excited to make The Beast even more enticing and show the casual poker player how easy it is to win cash and tournament seats every week. And as usual, there's no cost to participate in it. Ever."

The Beast is Americas Card Room's highly popular progressive points race. Funded entirely through the rake generated at cash tables, the pool grows and grows as players play in ring games. There's no need to opt in, so many players participate in The Beast without even realizing it.

The weekly race runs from Saturday at 12am ET until the following Friday at 11:59pm ET. At the end of the period, The Beast's prize pool is distributed to players who rank on the leaderboard. Poker players who win cash see the money paid into their account by end of day on Monday. Tournament seat wins are paid out on the Sunday following the cash prize payout.

The new format will see individual prize values halved but pay out twice as many players. It's designed to appeal to recreational players who don't necessarily play poker for a living, giving them the power to make extra money along with grinders. Players also now have the flexibility to play what they really want to in order to cash-in on The Beast, from regular cash games to Blitz Poker.