It’s nearly impossible to look around the remaining players in the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event and notice an abundance of 888 poker branding. The hats, shirts and patches adorned with the 888 poker logo seem to be everywhere – and that’s thanks to an extensive satellite campaign put on by the online poker site over the first six months of 2016.

A total of 148 players qualified for the WSOP Main Event through 888 poker this year. Most came through a satellite step system that allows players to start playing the first level for one penny.

“We have so many of them because the system is really friendly in terms of the process. We have six or seven steps that are running as scheduled tournaments,” said Hilli Shakked, 888 Director of Poker Operations. “Every hour we have a penny tournament, every hour we have a dime tournament, every one or two hours we have a $1 tournament.”

Those $1 buy-in Step tournaments are just the third step in what is a seven step qualifying system. Players advance from the $1 into the $5 Steps, then $30 Steps, then $160 Steps and eventually find themselves in a $1,050 WSOP Main Event package qualifier.

Shakked points out that one of the reasons the program is so successful is that players can move out of the step system at any time and use the tournament tickets elsewhere on 888 – including regularly scheduled MTTs.

While 888 is an official WSOP sponsor and the only online poker company that can offers WSOP Main Event satellites outside of WSOP.com, they launch the WSOP qualifier program in January to help build momentum and interest.

“We don’t want to run it too early. We want to create excitement around the start and then we can do some promotion around, so that everybody knows,” said Shakked. “Many play because of the opportunity to play in the WSOP. It adds a lot of prestige to us. And, of course there is some cannibalization with the regular games, but it’s difficult to measure the immediate impact. we believe that the overall impact is positive.”

Along with the 148 players who made their way into the Main Event through the site, another 100 players qualified for the $888 Crazy Eights event. But not all of those players made their way in via satellites. The site offered mission-based challenges throughout 2016 that rewarded players with the chanceto spin a wheel and win a Main Event or Crazy Eights package.

“We had several campaigns. We had one called “The Road to Vegas” that every player that registered got to spin a wheel,”said 888 Poker Acquisition Director Shai Tabibian. “The wheel gives some options, including a seat to the Main Event, the $888 event, or to participate in other freerolls. We had players register and win a seat to the Main Event.”

Now that the WSOP campaign is finished, 888 is focusing their qualifying efforts on this fall’s Super XL Series, which comes with the biggest main event guarantee they’ve ever run – $1.5 million. Qualifiers for that are running now.