Poker News
Every brief we've run. All the receipts, five days at a time.Refreshed 10/17/26
ACR Confirms a Client Vulnerability. It Hasn't Said What It Was.
10/17/26ACR told its players on Saturday morning that it had patched a security vulnerability in its poker client, and that anyone whose antivirus went off should contact support. It did not say what the antivirus would have been going off about. The notice went up on X at 11:04 a.m. ET. A software bug in the client, it says, created a potential security vulnerability, and ACR deployed a live patch within an hour of identifying the issue. Some players saw brief connectivity problems. ACR's review found no evidence of player account compromise or unauthorized access to account information, and it apologized for the disruption. It does not say what the bug was, when ACR found it, how long it was live or what the patch changed. Ray Zorfold of The Muck replied to the notice on X at 11:31 a.m. ET: "Could you provide more context as to the nature of the vulnerability or the patch?" As of 12:09 p.m. ET, no reply. Two days earlier, a player posting as BLESSEDJINGTAO had told followers to be careful on ACR, BCP "or anywhere online" for a bit. Half an hour into a session, he wrote, his antivirus started alerting, and a script tried to run like a million times, unsuccessfully he thought. On Friday at 11:33 p.m. ET, WolfSec0x0 posted that WPN / ACR "was compromised in some way" to the point that it started serving many players malware. WolfSec0x0 is the anonymous account that broke the Mesh Agent case in September. Anyone who played on WPN or any of its skins in the past week, the post said, may have been affected. The post is marked 1 of 2 and says the investigation is early and the poster is on vacation. We could not load the second part. Neither claim is confirmed. ACR's notice mentions neither, and nothing we can read ties them to it. WPN has told this story once before. We covered the Mesh Agent case on September 30. On October 3 CEO Phil Nagy said no poker client was believed compromised: the malware had come through third-party software on players' own computers. Saturday's notice is about a bug in the client itself. A bug is not a compromise, and the notice does not call it one. The notice sits at the top of ACR's October software-update page. The post right below it is titled "ACR Poker Gets Wild with Adult Emojis in the October Software Update."
Eight Bullets for TonyTheToenailcollector. $2,025 Into $1 Million.
10/14/26Heads-up for $1 million, TonyTheToenailcollector had 95 big blinds to zoru99's 23, and it ended with a cooler. No deal was possible. That is PokerListings' account, and it adds that he reached the final table as chip leader with 110 big blinds. zoru99 took $500,000. We checked the name, and that is the name. Seven of his eight bullets did nothing. The eighth started Day 2 in 177th place of 2,362 and paid $1 million, according to Card Player. While this was going on he was also heads-up in a $109 CoinMasters DOGE tournament, because one heads-up for a million dollars is apparently not enough to focus on. He finished second there for $19,204, which on a normal night is a payday and on this one is a footnote. He was not new here. PokerListings puts his CoinPoker earnings at around $400,000 before these two results, and Rakeback lists $401,161. The $1 million is about two and a half times that career. The rest of the final table: Bufunfa $325,000 for third off a $25 satellite, VivaLasVegans $225,000, SeniorTalez $160,000, raketenbauer $112,500 off a $50 satellite, billy1913 $77,500. More than 3,000 players won their seats through satellites, which is how you end up with a $250 tournament full of people who paid anywhere from nothing to $250. The tournament around him was supposed to lose money. The field finished at 24,074 entries from 18,730 players, which means 5,344 times somebody looked at the first try and said again, and the prize pool was $5,537,250 against a $5 million guarantee. On October 5, after three of 26 flights, Card Player had 4,197 entries and a long way to go. On October 12, Deadspin had a little over 10,000 with a handful of flights left. Covering $5 million at $250 takes 20,000 entries, it said. It called the hole seven figures, with a real shot at beating GGPoker's record overlay of $1,791,760. Roughly 14,000 entries showed up after that Friday count. The forecast was a read on the pace, and a good one right up until the pace changed. One thing the coverage does not reconcile. 24,074 entries at the $250 buy-in is $6,018,500, and the reported prize pool is $5,537,250, a gap of $481,250. Not every entry paid $250: more than 3,000 players got in through satellites, and Card Player says 4 percent of the players in the money won their ticket free. None of the reports says whether that accounts for the gap. Somebody at CoinPoker has the spreadsheet. The One returns in 2027.
GGPoker Sets Field Record at 420,084. First Prize Is $43,938.
10/13/26GGPoker's $5 Ocean KO Opener drew 420,084 entries according to the body of PokerNews's report, which also gave 415,000 in its title and description. Either number beats the previous record of 253,692 entries, set by PokerStars in October 2015 in a tournament called Common Cents. The event is a progressive knockout with random jackpot multipliers of up to 400x on the bounty. The $1 million guarantee was smashed, the prize pool for remaining players is over $1.9 million, and total bounties are over $1.05 million. First place pays $43,938. At least 24,134 players advanced to Monday's Day 2, and there is no winner yet. Ocean KO launched on October 4, and the first three buy-in levels on that Sunday drew 23,443, 5,926 and 692 entries. On a $5 bounty, Pokerfuse reports a 400x multiplier hits 0.002 percent of the time and 72.32 percent of knockouts pay less than the starting bounty. Some players argue the jackpot multipliers make online poker more like a lottery.
Casino Owner Says He Will Buy Back the Eight Casinos He Was Closing
Maverick Gaming CEO Eric Persson says a new company, which he calls a new version of Maverick Gaming, will buy back eight Washington casinos that had been set to close in November. They are American Casino in Everett, Chip's, Macau and Palace in Lakewood, All Star in Silverdale, Casino Caribbean in Yakima, Crazy Moose in Pasco and Coyote Bobs in Kennewick. The closures were expected to cost about 850 employees their jobs. Persson says the old owner, a lender-controlled entity, would terminate staff and the new company would rehire them, and told KIRO radio the deal should close in about three weeks. The price was not disclosed.
Mike Hurley Wins RGPS St. Louis Main Event for $52,597 in His Home State
Mike Hurley won the RunGood Poker Series Golden Expedition St. Louis $800 Main Event for $52,597 and the championship ring. The event drew 407 entries. Jacob Tourville finished second for $43,400. PokerNews describes the result as Hurley defending his home turf. The report does not state a deal and does not give the prize pool or Hurley's total ring count.
Crazy 8 Opener in London Ends With a Four-Way Deal and an Odd Payout Table
Gaverin Warner won the 500 pound 888 LIVE London Crazy 8 Opening Event for 22,430 pounds. The event drew 279 entries and a prize pool of 119,270 pounds. Zhenzhe Sun finished second for 15,080 pounds. Four players made a deal, and PokerNews says the payouts differed from the original structure. Its results table lists an anonymous third-place player, P.S., at 18,610 pounds, which is more than Sun received. The report does not explain the order.
PokerStars Used Alberta's Three-Month Grace Period to Announce It Is Leaving
10/12/26PokerStars emailed Alberta players that it will stop poker operations in the province on October 13, 2026, and gave no information about a return. Alberta opened a regulated online gambling market on July 13, 2026. Operators need a local license, and a three-month grace period for those without one ends on October 13. PokerStars had already shut its Alberta sportsbook and casino games on July 13 and moved those players to FanDuel's Alberta servers. Poker was the product left running. Alberta-registered players lose access ahead of the exit, enforced by IP and registration information. Funds stay available for withdrawal, tournaments starting on or after October 13 are refunded to balances, and non-promotional rewards convert to cash. PokerStars operates in Ontario as PokerStars on FanDuel, and Pokerfuse reports a return to Alberta would probably use a similar brand. On October 7 a hearing considered international player pooling, and counsel for Alberta's Attorney General supported the idea, according to Pokerfuse. When TheLines wrote on July 17, no new online poker operator had entered Alberta's market.
Tokyo Ladies Championship Winner Gets 150 Condoms and Three Lubes
The Japan Open Poker Tour's Ladies Championship, a 30,000 yen (about $190) event in Tokyo, is scheduled for Monday, October 12. The sponsor is Sagami, a Japanese condom maker, announced on October 6. The winner's prize is 12 boxes of Sagami Original condoms and 3 boxes of Sagami Original Large, 10 per box, plus three bottles of water-based lubricating gel. Second and third place also receive condoms and gel, and the top three get jewellery and merchandise. JOPT removed the prize details from its website. Critics on social media said the prizes undercut the goal of growing women's participation. On October 7 Sagami apologized to anyone who felt uncomfortable and said the partnership aims to support female players.
Cardiff Poker Room Called Ding Ding Poker Ends in Two Suspended Sentences
Noor Rassam, 29, and Panayiotis Karayiannis, 30, each received three years in prison, suspended for three years, at Cardiff Crown Court after pleading guilty to possessing and transferring criminal property. They ran an unlicensed live and online poker operation from an industrial unit in Splott, Cardiff, between August 2022 and February 2024. Both changed their pleas on the first day of trial. The room had six poker tables, a prize wheel, a cashier's window and CCTV. It was advertised as Ding Ding Poker, later Fish Tank Poker Cardiff, with online games as Fish Tank Online. About 260,000 pounds in third-party payments went to Rassam and about 124,000 pounds to Karayiannis. A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing is set for April 2027.
Brazil Bans Online Gambling. Poker Sites Say Poker Is Not Gambling.
Brazil's ban on licensed online betting and gaming took effect Tuesday, October 6. Pokerfuse reports Brazil treats poker as a game of skill rather than gambling, so it falls outside the measures. PokerStars said its peer-to-peer poker is "played between players and is distinct from the fixed-odds betting products covered by the restrictions" and told players to keep playing. Some Brazilian players report trouble reaching PokerStars, which is investigating whether internet service provider restrictions are involved. GGPoker continues to serve Brazilian players, and no similar problems have been publicly reported there.
Wilson Wins Super High Roller Bowl XI. Petrangelo Shoved Sevens Into a Straight.
10/11/26Brandon Wilson of Chicago won Super High Roller Bowl XI in Las Vegas on October 10, taking $1,125,000 and the championship ring. The $100,000 buy-in drew 28 entries, up from 23 in December 2025, for a $2,800,000 prize pool. Five places were paid. Heads-up, Wilson held 4,740,000 chips to Nick Petrangelo's 3,660,000. On the last hand Wilson raised to 130,000 on the button with queen-ten of spades. Petrangelo three-bet to 500,000 with pocket sevens and Wilson called. The flop was ace of diamonds, queen of clubs, nine of spades, and the turn was the jack of clubs. The river was the eight of hearts, which gave Wilson a queen-high straight. Petrangelo moved all in for 1,325,000 and Wilson snap-called. Petrangelo took $700,000. Alex Foxen finished third for $450,000, Jeremy Ausmus fourth for $310,000 and Adrian Mateos fifth for $215,000. Kristen Foxen went out in sixth on day 2, when her ace-eight lost to Wilson's pocket nines, one place short of the money. Earlier on day 2, Alex Foxen's pocket tens lost a pot to Petrangelo's pocket sixes when the board brought the one six left in the deck for sixes full. The hand cost the Foxen household hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, at least, by one estimate.
Seminoles Sue DraftKings Over Pick6, Which DraftKings Says Is Not Sports Betting
The Seminole Tribe of Florida sued DraftKings and CEO Jason Robins on Thursday, October 8, in the Circuit Court of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Broward County. The 72-page complaint says DraftKings' prediction market sports contracts and its Pick6 game violate state law and the tribe's 2021 Gaming Compact, which made the tribe the state's sole sports betting operator. The suit alleges DraftKings is unlicensed in Florida and pays no state taxes. It seeks an injunction, declarations and disgorgement of Florida profits. It is reportedly the tribe's first move against a prediction market platform. DraftKings says the product operates under federal law and the Commodity Exchange Act, that Pick6 is a peer-to-peer fantasy product that "is not sports betting," and that it is confident in its legal position.
Jason Koon, 12 Tridents, Will Skip the Next Triton Series for His Kids
Jason Koon, who was the lone Poker Hall of Fame inductee in August 2026, says he is putting family ahead of Triton records. He is days short of 41 and has nearly $77.6 million in tournament earnings, third in poker history, with 30 recorded wins including two WSOP bracelets. In the Triton Super High Roller Series he has 12 trident trophies, the most, and 81 cashes, tied with Daniel Dvoress for the most. Dvoress, Matthias Eibinger and Michael Watson each have seven trophies. Koon skipped the last Triton series and plans to skip the next. He has three sons. Koon's last live buy-in under $10,000 was in June 2019. Since December 2021 he has played nothing under $15,000 apart from the 2023 WSOP Main Event. He reached day 2 of Super High Roller Bowl XI and went out when his aces lost to Alex Foxen's flopped set of queens.
Erik Seidel Returns to Backgammon After 40 Years, Loses the Final From 16-16
Erik Seidel finished second in his first backgammon tournament in more than four decades, the Super Jackpot at the 2026 Las Vegas Open. The final was tied 16-16 in a match to 17 points. The article names no winner and gives no buy-in, field size or prize.
Jurojin Says the Attack on Players' PCs Was "a Blow to Our Ego"
10/10/26Jurojin Poker, one of two poker software products compromised in the superuser scandal, published an apology on October 9. The company says it learned of the attack the way the public did, through cybersecurity researcher @wolfsec0x0's investigation and suspicions raised by high-stakes players. It describes a highly targeted operation in which a tampered package replaced a legitimate update, installing spyware called Mesh on more PCs than the attacker used to snipe hands. The scandal has affected over two dozen high-stakes players. Jurojin says the attack mainly hit high-stakes players, less so mid-stakes and much less so low-stakes. It has a list of users confirmed in affected version groups and is notifying them directly. It warns the list may be incomplete, because the attacker moved users between groups and removed them quickly, and continuous backups of its database were not feasible. Low-stakes players are advised to wipe and reinstall their PCs or run the company's Mesh-check tool. Jurojin has also dropped periodic hand-saving, added internal security checks and filed reports with authorities abroad. The statement reads "To everyone who was affected, we are truly sorry." It calls the attack "a blow to our ego." It says it would "love for the affected users to get their funds back" and that casinos have a major responsibility to make that happen. High-stakes player Ignacio Moron believes he was cheated out of at least $100,000.
Norway Proposes Legal Online Poker With a $1 Big Blind and a 1 A.M. Curfew
Norway's Ministry of Culture and Equality released a fast-tracked online poker proposal on September 29. Poker would be legal only through the state-run operator Norsk Tipping, and all outside operators would be barred. The limits: a daily loss cap of NOK5,000 ($521), a monthly cap of NOK10,000 ($1,042), and NOK2,000 ($209) a month for players under 20. Maximum tournament buy-in is NOK2,500 ($260.50), maximum cash game buy-in NOK1,000 ($104) and maximum big blind NOK10 ($1). Players get four tables at most. The site closes from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., tournaments take a five-minute break every hour, and Norsk Tipping casino players moving to poker wait 15 minutes. An advertising ban is under consideration.
Treasure Island Adds AI to Catch Advantage Players. Advantage Players Aren't Cheating.
Treasure Island Las Vegas has partnered with OPTX, a Las Vegas firm whose casino operations system uses AI to monitor potential advantage players. The partnership began four months before the announcement, covering slot operations, and has reportedly expanded to player development, marketing, events and table games. The technology reportedly also flags successful players. OPTX previously helped another casino identify a slot player who won almost $2.4 million at a statistically implausible win rate. Advantage players use methods such as card counting in blackjack, or betting on a progressive slot jackpot once its expected value turns positive. The article is explicit that they are not cheating. Casinos can cut their comps or ban them.
WSOP Player of the Year Comes Down to 29 Points and a Trip to the Bahamas
Shaun Deeb leads the 2026 WSOP Player of the Year race with 3,410 points. Naoya Kihara has 3,388 and Alex Foxen 3,381, so the top three sit within 29 points. The race ends at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December, and for the first time standings combine WSOP Europe, the summer Las Vegas series and Paradise. Deeb, a 2018 and 2025 winner, is chasing a third title. Kihara would be Japan's first. The winner gets the new Binion Cup, finishers one through three each get a $100,000 WSOP Paradise Package, and the leaderboard pays $1 million across the top 100.
Rafael Wins $1.15 Million. Simao Used 14 Time Plaques to Fold a Hand.
10/09/26Sean Rafael won the $100,000 Super High Roller Bowl Pot-Limit Omaha IV on the PokerGO Tour for $1,150,000, the first seven-figure score of his career. The event drew 32 entries: 27 on day 1 and five late re-entries to open day 2. Four players busted twice on day 1 and were allowed to keep going. The $3.2 million prize pool paid six places, and Youness Barakat, the chip leader, went out seventh, one spot short, when Rafael flopped the nut flush against him. Joao Simao took second for $775,000. Richard Gryko got $480,000 for third, Talal Shakerchi $350,000 for fourth, Lautaro Guerra $255,000 for fifth and Cesar Garcia $190,000 for sixth. Rafael started the final six with just over 4.9 million chips to Simao's 1.415 million. Heads-up, Simao cut the lead to under 3 to 1 and could not get further. During that match Simao spent about seven minutes on one decision, used 14 time extension plaques, and then folded to a river straight. The last hand ran 9 of diamonds, 4 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 6 of clubs on the board. Simao held ace of diamonds, king of hearts, 5 of hearts, 4 of hearts. Rafael held ace of clubs, 7 of clubs, 7 of spades, 6 of diamonds, and was about 27.5 percent to win with one card to come. The 9 of clubs gave him the flush.
DraftKings Sued Over AI Marketing. It Says It Does Not Do That.
A proposed class action filed September 30 in federal court in Massachusetts alleges DraftKings used artificial intelligence to target customers, including people who may be problem gamblers, with incentives to keep betting. The plaintiff is Daniel Vest of West Virginia. He says he lost thousands of dollars on the platform over several years and received at least 70 emails, texts, push notifications and other messages in roughly 30 days ending September 25. The suit also says DraftKings violated Massachusetts law by not disclosing its use of AI in marketing to gamblers. DraftKings denies the allegations. A spokesperson said the company does not use AI to target customers based on losses or signs of problem gaming and will defend the case vigorously. CEO Jason Robins called a New York Times report on the same subject factually incorrect and slanderous. The Times reported, citing internal memos and interviews with more than 40 former employees, that DraftKings used AI to target likely losers and dropped an internal risk-score model meant to flag potentially addictive behavior.
Ohio Tells 10 Prediction Markets They Are Sportsbooks and Wants an Answer by October 16
The Ohio Casino Control Commission sent cease-and-desist letters on Friday to 10 prediction market operators offering sports event contracts in Ohio: Coinbase, Gemini Titan, Moomoo Financial, Novig, Plus500US, Polymarket, ProphetX, Robinhood Derivatives, Underdog Predict and Webull Financial. The letters tell each company to stop offering or facilitating those contracts and to confirm in writing within 14 days, which Legal Sports Report puts at October 16. They warn of administrative, civil, nuisance or criminal action, and say the commission can seek a civil penalty equal to what each company earned from Ohio sports event contracts. Kalshi is not on the list because it already sued the commission and lost at the Sixth Circuit. The industry argues its contracts are swaps and exempt from gambling law. The CFTC has proposed a rule excluding casino-style gambling products from the definition of a swap, with no timeline reported.
Condom Maker Apologizes for Condom Prizes. Tournament Still on for Monday.
Sagami, the condom maker sponsoring the Japan Open Poker Tour Ladies Championship in Tokyo, apologized on October 7 to everyone who felt uncomfortable about the prizes. The tour had listed 150 condoms and three bottles of lubricating gel for first place, then removed the prize details from its website. PokerNews reports no statement from the tour beyond its original post. The event is scheduled for Monday, October 12, with a buy-in of 30,000 yen, about $190. PokerListings reports the Japanese poker community has begun discussing a possible boycott, without naming who.
Las Vegas Woman Jailed Nearly a Year for Marrying Multiple Men in Fraud Scheme
10/08/26A Clark County judge sentenced Jiaying Chen on Tuesday to nearly a year in the Clark County Detention Center, with credit for time served, for a scheme in which she married men in Las Vegas and took their money. Judge Crystal Eller also set two years of probation with a suspended prison sentence of 8 to 20 years, ordered more than $280,000 in restitution, and required addiction counseling and Gamblers Anonymous meetings. Chen pleaded guilty in July to bigamy and to attempting to obtain $100,000 or more by false pretenses. Prosecutors say she married five men this year, took tens of thousands of dollars from them and then disappeared. They say she forged a Nevada driver's license and a U.S. passport under the alias Vicky Liang and lied on marriage applications, all to fund her gambling. Casino.org reported she lost more than $300,000 at Wynn Las Vegas in the past year. The reports do not agree on how many men were involved. Prosecutors say five, Casino.org reported more than a dozen, and Court TV reported the court record shows 14 marriage license applications in Clark County and seven marriage certificates issued. None of the coverage says what games she played.
Antonius Says He Beat Isildur1 for $1.5 Million. Back Then the Audience Was Public.
10/07/26Patrik Antonius says he finished about $1.5 million ahead of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in their 2009 Full Tilt Poker nosebleed matches. He said so on the debut episode of Jean-Robert Bellande's podcast, Broke Living With JRB, which Poker.org wrote up on October 6. Antonius said he won $3 million the day he won “that massive pot” and lost $2 million back within a couple of days, “but I probably beat him for $1.5 million overall.” Asked how many tables they played, he said, “We played four. It was so crazy those days,” and that he would never do it again. The pot he means was $1,356,947 at $500/$1,000 pot-limit Omaha on November 23, 2009, the largest in the history of online poker at the time. Antonius won it. Coverage that week had him more than $3.5 million up on Isildur1 over 12,604 hands, a figure from PokerTableRatings.com, one of the sites that tracked those games hand by hand while they were being played. ESPN's poker blog credited another tracking site, HighStakesDB, with following the same matches. That is the part that has aged oddly. The biggest online games of 2009 were watched on purpose, by strangers, in public, and the number that survives is the one Antonius gives from memory. In 2026 the audience for high-stakes online poker that made news was uninvited: a researcher says a remote-access trojan let someone watch roughly 30 high-stakes players' screens, hole cards included, through compromised poker tools. Jurojin and IntuitiveTables have both confirmed they were compromised.
JOPT Scrubbed Ladies Championship Prize Details After Listing 150 Condoms for First
10/06/26The Japan Open Poker Tour's Ladies Championship listed, as first prize, 150 condoms and three bottles of lubricating gel. The condoms came as 120 standard and 30 large, because the tour wanted that on the record. Second and third place also got condoms and lube, plus jewelry and merchandise such as hoodies, t-shirts and socks. The sponsor is Sagami, a Japanese condom manufacturer. The buy-in is 30,000 yen, about $190, and the event is in Tokyo. Social media users objected. One wrote that a tournament meant to broaden the base of female players was handing large quantities of sex products to its top three women. Another granted that sexual health awareness is a fine goal, then asked why a women-only event got these prizes in particular. The tour then removed the prize details from its website. Its press releases now describe the prizes as 'Sagami Product Gift Sets.'
APT Jeju Champion Sun Wins $315,639. Runner-Up Steve Ng Collects $331,548.
Jianfeng Sun of China won the Asian Poker Tour Jeju Main Event at LES A Casino for $315,639. The event drew 679 entries at a KRW 2,700,000 buy-in, about $1,907, and built a prize pool above $2.3 million against a KRW 2.2 billion guarantee. Seventy-two players cashed over four starting flights and four combined days. Runner-up Steve Ng took $331,548. That is $15,909 more than the champion, because of a heads-up deal. Third place paid $166,233, fourth $123,114 and fifth $96,213. Sun was runner-up in the same event two years ago, and the win pushes his career earnings past $1.9 million.
Wembanyama Turns Down Gambling Endorsements. A Poker Magazine Reports It as Industry News.
San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama said at training camp on October 5 that he would never endorse a gambling or sports betting site. Asked about it, he said: 'Absolutely not.' He added: 'I will never do that. Honestly, I think it's very sad to see some players promote it.' Wembanyama is 22, a two-time All-Star and the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year. He said he picks sponsors by personal values. Other NBA stars, including LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo, have accepted deals with betting operators such as DraftKings, FanDuel and Kalshi.
Wynn's Gulf Casino Lost One Day to the Iran War and Six Months to Something Else
Wynn Al Marjan Island, the Persian Gulf's first regulated casino, now opens in September 2027, pushed back from the first quarter of 2027. CEO Craig Billings told the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas that the Iran War cost 'one day' of construction. He said life on the ground in the UAE is 'completely normal.' The project also took on $600 million in conflict-related costs, including shipping and supply chain expenses. Total cost is near $5.7 billion.
Eight Maverick Casinos Are Set to Close November 30. Eric Persson Says They Are Not.
10/05/26Maverick Washington LLC has told Washington state that eight of its casinos will close on November 30, affecting about 850 jobs: Great American Casino in Everett, Chip's, Macau and Palace Casino in Lakewood, All Star Casino in Silverdale, Casino Caribbean in Yakima, Crazy Moose Casino in Pasco and Coyote Bobs Casino in Kennewick. Two Tukwila casinos close November 1, for 238 more jobs. The notices say Maverick Washington LLC is subject to a bankruptcy proceeding, and that if a site moves to a new owner or operator, the closure may not occur or could be delayed. They name no buyer. The bankruptcy is not new. RunItOneTime LLC, which does business as Maverick Gaming LLC, filed Chapter 11 with its affiliates on July 14, 2025, in the Southern District of Texas. Case summaries list Eric Persson as its CEO and roughly 58 percent owner of its parent company. In the 2025 sale process, a separate Persson-managed entity, also named Maverick Gaming LLC, bought the company's poker rooms for $28 million. Persson responded Monday evening on X, replying to Card Player's report on the closures: “These properties arent closing. Maverick Gaming is acquiring them. These jobs arent being lost, Im protecting them.” He added: “Maverick Gaming is not in Chapter 11, RunItOneTime LLC is. Maverick is in no way affiliated with RunItOneTime. We are actually acquiring assets from them.” He asked Card Player to retract and correct its story. Correction, October 5: an earlier version of this story gave the Chapter 11 filing date as July 2026 and said Maverick would keep four properties. The filing was July 14, 2025, and the four-property figure is not confirmed. The earlier version also stated the closures without the notices' language that they may not occur if a new owner takes over.
Kronwitter Wins the PGT PLO Series With 598 Points. Garcia Won the Biggest Check.
Jonas Kronwitter won the PokerGO Tour PLO Series championship with 598 points. He won two titles across eight events, cashed in five of them and took $576,088 in total, plus a $10,000 PGT Passport. Sam Soverel finished second with 376 points and Cesar Garcia third with 304. Garcia won the series finale, the $26,000 Championship, for $420,000 and his first PGT title. The event drew 48 entries for a $1.2 million prize pool, with seven places paid. Robert Cowen took $264,000 for second and Matthew Wantman $174,000 for third.
Casino Malta Hands Out Its First WSOP Circuit Ring to Luca Topazio for EUR 200,000
Luca Topazio of Italy won the first WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event, the first Circuit ring ever awarded at Casino Malta. The EUR 1,500 event drew 879 entries and a EUR 1,115,451 prize pool. Topazio took EUR 200,000 and a EUR 5,000 WSOP Paradise package. Radoslaw Kopec of Poland was second for EUR 125,000, Lucas van den Belt of the Netherlands third for EUR 85,000. The same weekend in Marrakech, Maxime Parys of France won the Unibet Open Main Event over 853 entries at a 12,000 MAD buy-in, beating fellow Frenchman Benjamin Hammann heads-up for 1,375,000 MAD.
RGPS Lake Erie Main Event Ends in a Nine-Card Flip After a Three-Way Chop
Michael Barlow won the $600 RunGood Poker Series Lake Erie Main Event in Ohio, which drew 360 players and a $200,000 prize pool. The final three, Barlow, Antonio Ndoja and David Hanna, agreed to an even chop that left the ring and the title still to be decided. Barlow and Ndoja then played a nine-card flip using five community cards. Barlow's tens full of aces beat Ndoja's tens full of jacks. Barlow collected $29,318 and the ring; Joffrey Gaetz was fourth for $15,270.
Hustler Casino Live Takes the Allegations Seriously and Britney Off the Air
10/04/26Hustler Casino Live said Saturday evening that Britney “will take a break from appearing” on the show while it reviews “the various allegations” concerning her. The statement, posted to the show's X account, says HCL takes the allegations seriously, is gathering information from the people involved and will not draw conclusions until the review is complete. It does not name an allegation, a timeline or who is running the review. The allegations began as a staking dispute. On September 21, player C Ye said Britney owed her $18,000. Britney answered on September 25 and 29. She said she has no outstanding debts, and that after a private June 7 game at the Venetian, floor staff told her group the surveillance footage had been checked and C Ye's final chip count differed from what she reported, leaving about $80,000 unaccounted for. She cited a Venetian record of a surveillance inquiry reviewed June 21 and a video from player Jeff the Cash, who says he saw chips taken off the table. C Ye denies stealing chips. She has said she took chips off the table mid-game and that it was a mistake, and that when she asked on September 30, Venetian security had no report under her name or Britney's. Charlie Carrel's September 27 investigation found C Ye's account consistent and Britney's changing. Dan Cates said he privately viewed Venetian emails confirming that surveillance video was reviewed, though not what it showed. On September 25, co-owner Ryan Feldman replied to Britney: “I believe and support Britney. She would never not pay someone, especially $18K. This whole thing is silly.” Since then HCL regular Wesley, who says he has been banned from the show, has accused her in a series of posts, including over a 2023 private game. Britney posted a video from Aussie Alan, a player named in his account, saying she never owed anyone money and that Wesley's allegations aren't true. HCL's statement addresses none of it by name.
ACR Believes No Poker Client Was Compromised. The Players' PCs Were.
10/03/26Winning Poker Network, which runs ACR, answered the Mesh Agent scandal with a seven-minute video from CEO Phil Nagy and a new feature called Screen Shield, which stops WPN tables from appearing in screen-capture and screen-sharing tools. Nagy said no poker clients are believed to have been compromised: the attacks ran through malicious third-party software on players' own computers. WPN contacted affected players on Tuesday, September 29, whose machines were running remote-access software, and switched Screen Shield on for them. Players will be able to turn it on themselves in a later update, which also means they can't stream or screenshot the table. WPN said it sent affected players' hand histories to GTO Wizard for review and that a wider investigation, which could end in compensation, is underway. Jurojin, one of the two compromised tools alongside IntuitiveTables, has now said an attacker intermittently swapped its update package for a tampered one, for one group of users, starting in June 2025. The researcher who first reported the case had put the activity back to March 2024. Players say the accounts were reported long before any of this. CoinPoker ambassador Patrick Leonard said regulars had reported them for over a year. He said CoinPoker's security team banned the Europe account, registered to Paul Gregg, and confiscated more than $100,000, and that no site has ever told another which players it banned. Mobius Poker's Patrick Howard said the player was reported “probably dozens of times.” No platform has confirmed Gregg, named in a player's complaint, as the operator.
Doyle Brunson Day: The Hand Nobody Plays Turns Three
10/02/26Today is Doyle Brunson Day. Poker picked October 2 because written as 10/2, the date matches the ten and the deuce Brunson held in the final hand of both his World Series of Poker Main Event wins, back to back, in 1976 and 1977. Ten-high with a deuce kicker is not a hand any coaching book recommends, the kind of hand a serious player folds without thinking twice. Brunson made a full house with it both times and won two world championships. The date itself came out of a memorial. Brunson died on May 14, 2023, at 89, and that July, Horseshoe Las Vegas hosted a celebration of his life at the Jubilee Theater. Brian Balsbaugh, Brunson's longtime agent and friend, hosted it and proposed October 2 as an annual Doyle Brunson Day. The room, which included Dewey Tomko, Mori Eskandani, Gabe Kaplan, Lyle Berman, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, agreed. That October, poker rooms turned the proposal into actual stakes. The Lodge, in Texas, paid $10,200 to any cash-game player who won a pot holding ten-deuce. Reno's Peppermill paid $100 for a flush or full house made with it between 10:02 a.m. and 10:02 p.m. The World Poker Tour ran a ten-deuce raffle in Madrid for a seat worth $1,100.
Three WCOOP Main Events Crowned. All Three Chip Leaders Lost.
10/01/26PokerStars finished the 2026 WCOOP Main Events and three people went home with the money. Felipe “lipe piv” Boianovsky of Brazil won the $10,300 World Championship for $551,632. He is the first player to win both a SCOOP Main Event and a WCOOP Main Event at that buy-in level. His SCOOP title came in June 2023 and paid $1,036,200. Alejandro “Papo AR” Lococo of Argentina won the $1,050 Main Event for $343,242 out of 2,310 entries. He beat “Goodarla” of Ireland heads-up, with Q-4 against 7-10 in the deciding hand. “ihor888888” of Ukraine won the $109 Main Event for $172,022 out of 14,533 entries, beating “shanyji” of Hungary heads-up. He had been sixth in chips at one point in the final. A day earlier, Dante Goya led the $10,300 final table with 12,889,640 chips, Jorge Abreu led the $1,050 with 36,701,208, and “wes345” led the $109 with 91,454,233. None of the three won.
CoinPoker Guaranteed $50 Million, Paid $88.44 Million and Called It a Championship
CoinPoker's first Global Online Poker Championship ran from August 23 to September 28. It guaranteed $50 million across 6,321 tournaments and paid out $88.44 million, 77 percent over the guarantee. The series drew 2,122,920 entries from 48,815 unique players in 172 countries. The $530 Main Event drew 7,414 entries and a prize pool over $3.7 million, and “siema” won $423,606. “Trance” won the $25,500 Super High Roller Championship for $397,035 from 51 entries. “PistolWhip” took the $1,500 CoinMasters BTC High Roller for $300,025. “agustinverna” of Argentina led the series leaderboard with 117 points and ten gold medals.
Barry Diller Pulls $18 Billion MGM Offer Because the Mix Did Not Come Together
People Incorporated, Barry Diller's company, withdrew its $18 billion offer for MGM Resorts. The deal would have given it a 50.1 percent controlling stake. It announced its interest in June 2026 and rescinded in late September. Diller said: “We didn't feel the mix was coming together in the way we had hoped.” CNBC reported that MGM's debt load, which exceeds $30 billion, played a significant role in the decision. MGM shares fell from about $38 on September 23 to about $32 on Monday. People Incorporated says it remains open to a strategic transaction with MGM. The Wall Street Journal reported MGM may instead pursue buying People Incorporated.
Jonas Kronwitter Takes PGT PLO Event 5 for $201,600, His Fourth Cash of the Series
Jonas Kronwitter won the $10,500 PGT PLO Series Event 5 for $201,600 from 63 entries and a $630,000 prize pool. Richard Gryko took $126,000 for second and Jiyang Gan $88,200 for third. Kronwitter's flush draw hit on the turn against Gryko's two pair. He earned 360 Player of the Year points, for 1,808 on the year, and nearly $4.3 million in lifetime earnings. He had also finished second in Event 1 and cashed Events 2 and 4. Gryko was runner-up to James Chen in the $10,500 PLO event reported yesterday.
Online Poker Security Reaches New Milestone: Just Hack the Player
09/30/26An anonymous cybersecurity account on X, @wolfsec0x0, posted Tuesday that a remote-access trojan called Mesh Agent had been planted on high-stakes players' Windows PCs through at least two compromised third-party poker tools since March 2024: IntuitiveTables and Jurojin. IntuitiveTables publicly confirmed Tuesday that it had been compromised. Jurojin has not confirmed compromise. It said it is investigating alongside the researcher and “sharing everything we find.” The tool can view a player's screen in real time, including hole cards, take control of the mouse and keyboard, and copy files including saved passwords and payment information. The account put the number of affected players at 10 to 30 and said the agent has since been removed or disabled on every PC confirmed so far. Within hours, a name was attached to the claim. A player posting as Aleksey “Avr0ra” Borovkov filed a complaint identifying a Canadian player, Paul Gregg, as the person behind it: his own name on GGPoker, the handles 0xOO, JackKlompus and Ez[Pz] on WPN, and Europe on CoinPoker. Outlets citing the complaint put the two WPN accounts' combined profits above $837,000, and total alleged winnings across all three sites at $800,000 to $2 million. Patrick Leonard, a CoinPoker-sponsored pro, said the site actually banned the Europe account about two years ago over a flagged violation, and repaid roughly $100,000 to affected players at the time, never disclosed until now. No platform has confirmed Gregg's identity. PokerExclusive, one of the outlets that reported the complaint, said there is no evidence the platforms' own software, as opposed to third-party tools, was compromised. Poker coach Mobius Poker called the situation “very, very bad,” saying it would “change online poker forever.”
Brazil Bans Online Gambling Days Before Its Election, and Poker Is in the Blast Radius
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a provisional order on September 26 prohibiting sports betting and online casinos, along with legislation making fixed-odds betting a criminal offense. The announcement came days before the first round of the presidential election. Sports betting operators must stop accepting new deposits, and gamblers have until October 5 to withdraw their funds. The legislature has 120 days to approve the measures for them to become permanent. About 60 percent of Brazilians support the ban. Brazil legalized online gaming in 2024, less than two years ago. Lula said: "Either we remove the tumor, or it kills us."
Vegas High-Stakes Game Runners Are Being Banned for Loaning Money Without a Full KYC
High-stakes player and Venetian game runner Brian Okin says stricter anti-money-laundering rules will end private poker games in Las Vegas casinos. He said: "All the game runners are being banned for loaning money without doing a full KYC." The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network put new anti-money-laundering rules in place in April 2026. The Venetian, Caesars and MGM faced fines tied to Matthew Bowyer, described in the article as an illegal bookmaker, wagering millions without source-of-funds checks. Another game runner, known as Boston Jimmy, announced the end of his private game at the Wynn.
Sergio Aido Beat 1,753 Players in a $10,000 Online High Roller for $2.23 Million
Sergio Aido of Mexico won the $10,000 GGMillion$ High Rollers at the 2026 WSOP Online at GGPoker, beating a field of 1,754 for $2,228,762. It is his third WSOP bracelet, and it came with a $30,000 Super Pass to the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. Matheus Machado of Brazil took second for $1,718,571 and Roeland Peeks of Austria was third for $1,325,271.
NCPG Took $2 Million From Kalshi, Then Called Prediction Markets Gambling
09/29/26The NCPG published a statement this week saying prediction markets are "functionally gambling" and expose consumers to the same risks and harms as traditional gambling. Board president Derek Longmeier cited a Harris Poll, conducted on behalf of the NCPG, finding that 85 percent of Americans agree people can develop unhealthy or addictive behaviors on prediction market platforms. The statement has a history. In June 2026 Kalshi donated $2 million to the NCPG. The council then created a Financial Trader Health and Safety Initiative and a financial services subcategory for the company. Jaime Costello, the NCPG's director of programs, resigned after the statement. The Nevada chapter ended its affiliation in August. The Michigan and Ohio gaming regulatory boards cut ties. The Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling ended a 35-year affiliation. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission considered leaving and is still monitoring.
Jennifer Tilly Won a $122,400 Pot Twice and Still Finished Down $109,100
On PokerGO's No Gamble No Future, at $100-$200 blinds with a $400 straddle, Greg Mueller raised to $1,500 and Darin Feinstein called. Antonio Esfandiari three-bet to $10,000 with tens. Jennifer Tilly moved all in for $59,600 with fours, and Esfandiari called for a $122,400 pot. The hand ran twice. On the first board of 7-7-6-4-A, Tilly's four made a full house and she took half. On the second, A-Q-2-3-5 gave her a wheel and the other half.
Alex Botez Beat Two Streamers for $250,000 and Caught One Bluffing Twice
Alex Botez won the eight-player ClubWPT Gold Poker Champs heads-up tournament, a $500,000 prize pool, for $250,000, her career-best tournament score. She beat Eric "Erobb221" Robbins Jr. in round one on September 24 for $50,000, then "PaymoneyWubby" in the September 26 semifinal for $125,000, winning that match with K-3 against queens when a deuce of diamonds hit the river. In the best-of-three final she beat Thomas "Sodapoppin" Morris, catching him bluffing twice with king-high and holding pocket tens on the final hand.
The LA Poker Classic Is Back on the WPT Schedule After a Six-Year Gap. The 2026 Edition Drew 50.
The WPT is putting the Los Angeles Poker Classic back on its Season 25 schedule at Commerce Casino. The series runs January 15 to March 7, 2027, with a $10,000 no-limit hold'em main event from February 26 to March 3. The last WPT-sanctioned main event ended in May 2021, when Balakrishna Patur won $1,015,000 from 490 entries. The event appeared on every WPT schedule from Season 1 through Season 18. The 2026 edition drew 50 entries, the smallest field since the buy-in went to $10,000 in 2003.
The Star Sydney's Licence Stays Suspended to 2027. WPT Australia Still Deals There.
09/28/26The New South Wales Independent Casino Commission made the ruling official on September 25: The Star Sydney's governance and anti-money-laundering remediation still has not gone far enough to hand the building back, the commission said, with a straight face. The suspension has run continuously since October 2022, when the Bell inquiry first decided the casino was unsuitable over money-laundering and compliance failures, and a second inquiry in 2024 found the place was still a mess. A regulator had to appoint an actual outside manager, Nick Weeks, just to keep the lights on. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre separately pursues Star Entertainment for a A$400 million penalty in federal court, a case still awaiting judgment. None of that has slowed the World Poker Tour down for one second. WPT Australia has been dealing cards at The Star Sydney since September 24 and keeps going through September 30, four days into a suspension extension that runs another twenty-one months past it. The felt does not care about your licence status.
Daniil Kiselev Was 13th of 15 on Day 3. Two Days Later He Had $1 Million.
Daniil Kiselev won the Mediterranean Poker Party's $5,400 Main Event on September 28 for $1,000,000, the largest live score of his career, out of a 972-entry field at the Merit Crystal Cove Resort in Cyprus. He returned for the final two days sitting 13th of 15, which is technically still alive the way a car alarm is technically still music, after climbing back from 23,000 in chips with blinds at 4,000/8,000 on Day 1. He finished the tournament as chip leader and beat Mehmet Biskin heads-up. Biskin took $621,000 for second; Jordan Woodall was third for $420,000.
A 23-Year-Old Accountant Turned $1,899 in Earnings Into €150,000 in One Weekend
Lucas Archeny, a 23-year-old accountant from Bourg-en-Bresse, won the Winamax Poker Open Aix-les-Bains Main Event on September 27 for €150,000, beating a 2,873-entry field that built a €1,185,974 prize pool on a €500 buy-in. Before Saturday he had $1,899 in recorded live tournament earnings, across two cashes, which is the kind of poker resume most people would not lead with on a first date. On the way to the title he eliminated French poker streamer Mathieu Pontin in third for €74,000 and Day 3 chip leader Timothee d'Anfray in fourth for €51,500, then beat Etienne de Soultrait heads-up. De Soultrait took €105,000 for second.
Aleksandr Razinkov Won the $3,300 Mystery Bounty. The $100,000 Bounty Went to Someone Else.
Aleksandr Razinkov won the Mediterranean Poker Party's $3,300 Paradise Mystery Bounty for $85,000, beating Aleksei Istomin heads-up in a 290-entry field, spiking a ten to turn pocket tens into the winning hand. The tournament's single largest mystery bounty, $100,000, had already gone to Chengxu Hu back on Day 2, to a player who did not even reach Sunday's final table. Istomin took $55,000 for second.
King's Resort Guaranteed €500,000 for a PLO Title. It Paid the Gap Itself.
09/27/26It was his first major tournament title, a career-high score for a player who, by his own account, is primarily a cash game player. That made for an odd week to also turn out to be the best tournament player in the building. The festival is built around a headline €10 million guarantee across the full King's Million series. Uharcek carried the chip lead into the final day, the 44 players who made it that far each guaranteed at least €3,525, and eliminated Jan-Peter Jachtmann, a 2012 WSOP bracelet winner in Pot-Limit Omaha, in fourth place. He then closed out a heads-up match organizers called lengthy against Lucas Giebing, who took home €62,600 for second. The final hand ran Uharcek's ace-queen-jack-seven of diamonds against Giebing's nine-eight-seven-four, on a board of ace-six-four-seven-king, the kind of four-card collision that only Omaha produces and only a recap can make sound orderly.
Robert Chorlian Wins First PGT Title, Beats a $6.6 Million Career PLO Earner
Robert Chorlian won his first major tournament on September 26, taking down Event #2 of the 2026 PGT PLO Series at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas for $135,150. The $5,300 pot-limit Omaha event drew 106 entries and built a $530,000 prize pool. Chorlian beat Lautaro Guerra heads-up, a player Card Player calls one of the winningest pot-limit Omaha tournament players of all time, who collected $84,800 for second. Sean Rafael, whose career PLO earnings run past $6.6 million, went out third for $60,950.
PokerStars Hits Its Fourth Spin & Go Jackpot in Two Months for $500,000
PokerStars' Spin & Go Max paid out its fourth big multiplier jackpot in two months on September 24, when a $25 buy-in turned into a $650,000 prize pool at 26,000-to-1 odds. The player known as "visiontechno," based in the UK, took home $500,000 on what PokerStars called a one-in-a-million shot. It followed three earlier hits since late July, each a $1.2 million pool at the same 240,000-to-1 odds on a $5 buy-in, paying $1 million apiece to winners in Denmark, Argentina and the UK in turn. Across all four jackpots, PokerStars has now paid out $4.25 million.
Daniel Negreanu Reaches Third WSOP Final Table in Five Days, Still No Bracelet
Daniel Negreanu made his third World Series of Poker Online final table in five days on September 25, in the $5,000 High Roller Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha event on GGPoker. He reached the eight-handed final table fourth in chips with 35 big blinds, well behind chip leader Yigal Papi's 134. He finished sixth for $43,641 plus roughly $15,000 in bounties, holding two pair when Blaz Zerjav flopped a set and took the rest of his stack. The event drew 378 entries.
Atlantic City: Caesars' Sale Would Hand Fertitta Four of Its Nine Casinos
09/26/26The vote, held September 24, passed with 65.4 percent in favor, the kind of margin a room reaches when the alternative is staying employed by the company that just got bought. Fertitta already owns the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. If the sale closes, he adds Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah's Resort and the Tropicana, putting one owner in charge of four of the boardwalk's nine casinos. The deal still needs sign-off from the FTC, which sent Caesars a second request for information on September 14, and from gaming regulators in more than a dozen states. The FTC made Caesars sell three casinos to approve its own 2020 merger with Eldorado, so it already has a template for how this could go. Closing is expected sometime in mid-2027.
Sam Soverel Won a Record 16th PokerGO Tour Title, Three Clear of Alex Foxen
Sam Soverel won the kickoff event of the PGT PLO Series on PokerGO Tour on September 25, a $5,000 buy-in that drew 91 entries and paid him $122,850. It is Soverel's 16th PokerGO Tour title, a record he now holds three clear of Alex Foxen's 13. He closed it out when his pocket aces held against Jonas Kronwitter's ace-eight-six-three, with the board running ten, seven, three, five and seven. Kronwitter took $79,625 for second, and John Dapkus $56,875 for third.
50 Cent's Casino Dice Game Has One Rule Left From the Corner
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is bringing a licensed version of Cee-lo, the three-dice street game, to a casino floor. Jackson partnered with casino equipment supplier TCSJOHNHUXLEY to debut the game, rebranded "Headcrack," at the Global Gaming Expo, running September 28 through October 1 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The rules survive the move indoors: three dice, a roll of 4-5-6 wins on the spot, a roll of 1-2-3 loses on the spot, and pairs and trips score by the numbers. What changes is a house banker, a pay table and side bets, the parts of a casino game a street corner never needed. "For a hundred years this game lived on the corner," Jackson told TMZ. "Now it's got a dealer, a pay table, and a seat at the table in a real casino. Same dice, new floor."
WSOP Circuit Opens First-Ever Malta Stop as Iowa Hands Out Two More Rings
The WSOP Circuit opened its first-ever stop in Malta on September 25 at Casino Malta in St. Julian's, with twelve international rings on the schedule including a euro-denominated Main Event. Back in Iowa, Horseshoe Council Bluffs kept handing out its own. Daniel Lowery won the $400 Big O for $8,607 over 96 entries on September 22. Ari Engel took the $400 No-Limit Hold'em ring for $6,613 over 68 entries the next day.
Andrii Novak Won His First Bracelet. It Paid Him Twenty Times His Old Career High.
09/25/26The win is a $5,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament on WSOP.com that built a $28,538,000 prize pool against a $25 million guarantee, a number WSOP Online hands to exactly one person a year. Beckmann moved all in for seven big blinds holding queen-seven of hearts, and Novak called with ace-jack. The board ran ace, king, four, ten, five, giving him top pair and a kicker good enough to end a tournament that started with 6,008 other people. Beckmann took $3,030,486 for second, and Moyan Chen finished third for $2,336,938. The rest of the final table paid Fernando Liano $1,802,141 for fourth, Charles La Boissonniere $1,389,754 for fifth, Pavlo Yakovliev $1,071,761 for sixth, Arian Hassankashani $826,555 for seventh, Yury Nadinsky $637,476 for eighth and Pablo Silva $491,676 for ninth.
ClubWPT Gold Is Leaving Nevada. It Won't Say Why.
ClubWPT Gold is winding down its Nevada operations. The company told players by email that the move comes "as part of changes to our operations in response to state regulatory action." Nevada players can no longer deposit. Play stops at midnight on September 28, and withdrawals are due by October 2. The sweepstakes site, fronted by ambassadors including Phil Ivey, Doug Polk and Ethan "Rampage" Yau, had operated in 41 states before the exit, including a biweekly $1 million guaranteed tournament called the Gold Million. Neither Nevada regulators nor ClubWPT Gold has said what the regulatory action actually was.
Boyd Gaming Sold a Casino Lot for $16.2 Million Less Than It Paid
Boyd Gaming sold the former Eastside Cannery site, 29.5 acres along Boulder Highway it bought for $45 million in 2025, for $28.8 million to a New York investment firm, a $16.2 million loss. The buyer has given Lennar Corp. an option to acquire the land, and Clark County commissioners have approved plans for 279 two-story single-family homes on the site. The Eastside Cannery closed in 2020 and Boyd demolished the building in March of this year.
The Asian Poker Tour Opened 135 Events in Jeju Today
The Asian Poker Tour opened its 20th-anniversary Jeju festival today at LES A Casino inside Jeju Shinhwa World, a 135-tournament schedule running through October 7 with a total guarantee of 5.2 billion Korean won, about $3.8 million. The 2.7 million won Main Event alone guarantees 2.2 billion won, and its top three finishers each collect a seat to the APT Championship 2026 Main Event in Taipei.
Cooper Feltham Won WPT Prime Australia From 17 Big Blinds With a River Wheel
09/24/26Cooper Feltham started the final table of the WPT Prime Australia Championship at The Star Sydney needing to survive with just 17 big blinds, the lowest of the nine players left in a 1,036-entry field worth a AUD 1,346,800 prize pool. His first real test came early: he called an all-in with pocket sixes against Louis Luo's ace-ten from the small blind, and the river paired his sixes into a set to keep him alive. Feltham kept building from there, and by the time heads-up play started against Ling Liu he held a chip lead of roughly 38 million to 4 million. Liu would not fold quietly, stringing together doubles until the two got it in preflop, Liu's ace-seven ahead of Feltham's ace-deuce. The board ran four of diamonds, jack of diamonds, four of hearts, three of spades, five of spades, completing a wheel, ace through five, for Feltham and ending the comeback one card short. Feltham collected AUD 187,793. Liu took AUD 161,127 for second, and Liu Yang finished third for AUD 99,000.
Paul Volpe Beat Kings With Nines and Aces With Jacks to Win Borgata's $492,415 Title
Paul Volpe won the BetMGM Borgata $5,300 Big, Big Championship, his home casino's marquee live event, beating 519 entries and a $3,000,000 prize pool for $492,415 in a heads-up deal with Frank Lagodich, who took $420,000. Volpe needed pocket nines to beat a set of kings on Day 3, then pocket jacks to beat Sead Duraku's pocket aces at the final table, before the deal ended the tournament two-handed. Scott Blumstein, the 2017 WSOP Main Event champion, finished sixth for $97,865.
Renan Bruschi's Fourth WCOOP Title Leaves Him One Win From a Three-Way Tie
Renan "Internett93o" Bruschi won the $530 NLHE PKO Bounty Builder High Roller for $23,772, his fourth WCOOP title of the 2026 series and thirteenth of his career. The win ties him for sixth on WCOOP's all-time list with Tobias "Senkel92" Leknes, both at thirteen. One more title would tie him with Joao "Naza114" Vieira, Niklas "Lena900" Astedt and Denis "aDrENalin710" Strebkov, who each have fourteen. His other 2026 titles came in the $530 NLHE Mystery Bounty Wednesday Surprise, the $1,050 NL 2-7 Single Draw, and the $1,050 NLHE Turbo, the last worth $21,189. Bruschi has won all thirteen of his career WCOOP titles since his first, in 2022.
Aliaksei Chernak Won the King's Million Scepter for the Second Time in Three Years
Aliaksei Chernak won the 400 euro Deepstack at the 2026 King's Million European Poker Championship in Rozvadov, beating 1,054 entries and a 358,360 euro prize pool for 54,800 euros and the King's Million Royal Scepter trophy. He played the final day as the short stack, surviving multiple all-ins and two double-ups against runner-up "boundless," of Cuba, who took 34,300 euros. It is Chernak's second major title at the venue; he won the Euro Poker Million there in 2023.
Negreanu Flew to Canada for Bracelet Nine. He Finished Seventh.
09/23/26Daniel Negreanu, who holds eight World Series of Poker bracelets, flew from Las Vegas to Vancouver last week because GGPoker, the site running the 2026 WSOP Online series, does not accept players inside the United States. He started the final day of the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event second in chips with 92.1 big blinds, behind a player known online as Elite and later identified on the stream as Andreas Freund, who held 123.8. A few orbits later, Freund raised under the gun with queen-ten-eight-eight and Negreanu defended the big blind with queen-jack-four-four. The flop of ace-three-two checked through. The turn brought a third eight, giving Freund a set of eights and a flush draw. Negreanu, holding two flush draws of his own, bet, got raised, and repotted before calling off. The pot ran close to 200 big blinds, four times the size of the next-largest stack at the table. The river paired the board in clubs and gave both men a flush. Freund's was higher. Negreanu was left with under seven big blinds and busted soon after in seventh place for $71,111. At the time of publication, Freund was heads-up for the bracelet, a $30,000 WSOP Paradise package and $428,888.
Boris Smuskevicius Won Everything His Home Casino Had. Cyprus Paid $217,000.
Boris Smuskevicius of Lithuania won the $3,500 Merit Poker Cup in Cyprus, beating a 418-entry field for the biggest live score of his career. A three-way ICM deal left him $217,000, three thousand short of the advertised first prize, and he closed it out with quad queens against runner-up Ekrem Sanioglu, who took $118,000. The turning point came earlier, when he got his stack in with pocket jacks against pocket queens for a quarter of the chips in the tournament and a jack on the turn made him a set. His previous best was $39,800, won at the Aria in Las Vegas in 2023. "I won everything that Olympic Casino offered and looked to bigger challenges," he said of the casino in Lithuania where he learned the game twenty years ago.
Rampage Demanded a Clock on Harut. The Numbers Said He Was Average.
Ethan "Rampage" Yau called for a clock on an opponent going by Harut during a Hustler Casino Live stream after Harut took about a minute to decide on a fold. Harut, with the nut flush draw, had $92,000 behind and better than 2-1 on the call when Rampage check-raised to $18,000 on the turn. "Clock, he's taking so long. We have 30 minutes left. It's just the flop," Rampage said, though the hand was already on the turn. Harut folded. Hustler's own on-screen stats showed his average tank time for the session was nine seconds, the same as everyone else at the table. Harut finished up $72,600 and Rampage finished down $103,250.
A 20-Year-Old Won His Second WSOP Ring. He Still Can't Play at Home.
Joseph Olivieri, 20, of North Carolina, won his second WSOP Circuit ring in a $600 pot-limit Big O at TCH Social in Austin for $31,990, beating bracelet winner Yuval Bronshtein heads-up. He can't legally play poker in his home state until he turns 21 in March. The ring earns him a package to WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas this December, where he can play.
Abby Merk Answered a Friend's Question. The Internet Built a Stockade.
09/22/26Abby Merk, a poker player, content creator and CoinPoker ambassador, raised to $50 from the hijack in a livestreamed $1/2 cash game at The Lodge Card Club in Texas. The cutoff 3-bet to $150. A player named Susan, who had limped under the gun, called, and Merk 4-bet shoved for $821. The cutoff folded and Susan tanked. "Do you want action?" Susan asked, weighing the call. "Not really," Merk answered. Susan called anyway, the two agreed to run the board twice, and Merk lost the pot and asked on camera: "What's the minimum I can buy in for? I don't really want to play anymore." The clip passed a million views within days. Poker pro Matt Berkey called Merk's reaction "a ridiculous reaction to a self inflicted wound." Comedian and player Caitlin Comeskey posted: "Being one of the most prominent women in poker in 2026 is fucking torture." Merk later explained on Instagram that she and Susan are longtime table friends and that she answered the way she would answer a friend, not an opponent. Susan's own statement backed up that account and added that folding as a favor "would be collusion." The two say they resolved everything privately within minutes of the stream ending.
Eric Chang Won a Record Austin Main Event. The World Champion Made $19,030.
Eric Chang, a Texas-based pro and Columbia graduate, won the $1,700 World Series of Poker Circuit main event at Texas Card House Austin on Monday for $433,670 and his second Circuit ring. The 2,090 entries were the largest field a $1,700 Circuit main event has drawn, building a prize pool of $3,166,350 against a $2 million guarantee. Chang sat fifth of nine when the final table began and eliminated Eric Tang in fifth with ace-king of diamonds. Lucas Jumalon, who won the 2026 WSOP main event and its $10 million first prize in early August, came back for the final day as chip leader with 18 players left and finished 14th for $19,030.
Amy Batson Won Mississippi's First Belt Buckle on a Flip. Holland Took the Money.
The inaugural Mississippi State Poker Championship $400 main event, a RunGood Poker Series stop at Horseshoe Tunica, ended with a seven-way ICM chop. Michael Holland took the largest share at $17,570, followed by Brandon Owens at $15,162, Jason Miller at $12,120, Jeff Manley at $11,305, Bill Onley at $10,547, Amy Batson at $9,394 and Melinda Freeman at $8,777. With the money settled, the seven flipped for the belt buckle, the winner's photograph and the title itself. Batson won the flip and became the first champion in the event's history. She has played poker a little over a year, started at a bar league called River Rat Rounders after her son left for university, and wore a crown at the table throughout Day 2.
Viorel Gavrila Had $10,007 in Live Cashes This Year. Rozvadov Paid Him 125,500 Euros.
Viorel Gavrila of Romania won the 250 euro EPC Mini Main Event at King's Resort in Rozvadov for 125,500 euros and the Royal Scepter trophy, out of 4,389 entries against a 1 million euro guarantee. He knocked out each of the last four opponents himself, ending it with nine-five offsuit against Mystery Kid's ace-king. He had $10,007 in live cashes this year and says he now plans to play more live.
Negreanu Flew to Vancouver for a WSOP Bracelet. He Lives in Las Vegas.
09/21/26Daniel Negreanu, eight WSOP bracelets and a job as a GGPoker ambassador, made the trip so he could sit in a hotel room and open a laptop. The 2026 WSOP Online series runs 33 bracelet events between August 16 and September 29. A follower asked whether players could organize to change the law. He answered that many efforts have been made over the years, and that he is not hopeful of anything ever passing at the federal level. The trip is going well regardless: he reached the final table of Event 27, the $10,000 GGMillion$ pot-limit Omaha, and comes back Monday second in chips with seven players left, streaming it.
We Reported a Liechtenstein Ring on Friday. It Was Won in March.
Correction. On September 19 this brief reported Benjamin Hammann winning the CHF 1,500 Main Event at the Grand Casino Liechtenstein in Gamprin, 827 entries and CHF 190,392, as that week's news. Hammann won it on March 10, at a different Liechtenstein festival six months earlier. The September stop at the same casino is a separate series with a CHF 1,350 Main Event, still unfinished. It drew 687 entries and built a CHF 760,752 prize pool, clearing its CHF 750,000 guarantee. Twenty-four players return Monday for Day 3, led by Andrea Scarrone on 3,015,000.
WPT Prime Australia Drew 1,036 Entries. WPT Has Not Published a Prize Pool.
Day 1d of the AUD 1,500 WPT Prime Australia Championship at The Star Sydney drew 329 entries, the largest of the four flights, and sent 44 players through. The event closed at 1,036 entries with 141 survivors. Cooper Feltham bagged 1,153,000 to take the overall chip lead into Day 2, which restarts Monday at 12:30 p.m. local with the money bubble in sight. The tour's own page for the Prime Championship lists the tournament as live and its prize pool as a dash.
The First RunGood Ring in the Caribbean Went to a Man Who Lives There
Vincenti Cham of Aruba won the $400 RunGood in Aruba ring event at the Hilton Aruba Caribbean Resort and Casino, the first RunGood Poker Series stop ever held in the Caribbean. The tournament drew 404 entries for a $133,320 prize pool and paid Cham $29,106. He beat Michael Baumann, a 21-year-old German, heads up, and now sits first on the island's all-time money list, ahead of his own student Pieter Susebeek. He is giving the ring to his son.
Rob Damelian Won His Second WPT Trophy In Two Days. It Paid AUD 7,631.
09/20/26He was behind heads-up in both wins and came back both times, against Michael Kanaan in the Outback Survivor Bounty two days earlier and against David Hirst in Saturday's Bonzai. Hirst took AUD 4,986 for second and Chang Yoo AUD 3,483 for third. Damelian has played the Australian circuit for more than 15 years and has over USD 1.45 million in career live earnings. The festival runs at The Star from September 10 to September 30.
David Stefanski Won The Borgata's $10,200 Event. Third Place Out-Earned Second By $28,925.
David Stefanski won Event 6 of the Borgata Big, Big Series, the $10,200 Big, Big Baller in Atlantic City, taking $169,220 from a 69-entry field and a $690,000 prize pool. Three-handed, Stefanski, Michael Wang and Drew O'Connell agreed an ICM deal and left $19,960 to play for. O'Connell, chip leader when the deal was struck, locked up $156,675 and then busted third. Wang locked up $127,750 and lost the heads-up match. Stefanski's $149,260 from the chop plus the $19,960 he played for came to $169,220. Matt Glantz took $62,530 for fourth.
BetRivers Will Award A Trophy In All 100 Events. The Cheapest Costs $3 To Enter.
BetRivers Poker announced the 2026 BetRivers Poker Championship, a 15-day online series running September 27 through October 11 with 100 tournaments and more than $600,000 in total guarantees. Buy-ins run from $3 to $500. Every tournament awards a trophy, and six designated Championship events award an exclusive Championship trophy on top of that. The Main Event is a $200 buy-in with a $40,000 guarantee and the Mini Main Event is $20 with a $6,000 guarantee. The series closes on October 11 with a $3 Silver Last Chance Saloon PKO carrying a $300 guarantee.
The WSOP Guaranteed $1 Million In Bonuses. If Nobody Earns It, It Gets Split Anyway.
The World Series of Poker brought back the Paradise Parlay for WSOP Paradise 2026, a $1 million promotion for players who won a 2026 bracelet or reached a bracelet-event final table. Qualifying finalists collect from $500 for registering for Super Main Event Day 1A up to $250,000 for its bracelet; 2026 bracelet winners collect from $1,000 up to $500,000. Each category pays once. If the total falls short of $1 million, the WSOP divides the difference equally among qualifiers.
House Ways And Means Voted To Repeal The Gambling Tax. Five Members Voted No.
09/19/26Bill sponsor Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said the tax puts at risk the livelihoods of dealers, housekeepers, restaurant workers and small business owners in a state that depends on visitors. All five no votes came from Democrats. The bill moves next to a full House vote and then to the Senate. Dina Titus has pushed the same repeal through her FAIR BET Act for more than a year and attached it to a tax package this week. Titus said the fix had finally passed out of committee after fourteen months of uncertainty.
Britain Took The Online Casino Tax To 40 Percent. Entain Cut 400 More Jobs.
Entain, which owns partypoker and Ladbrokes and half of BetMGM, is eliminating 400 jobs after a previous round of 500, and said around 1,000 of its betting shops in the United Kingdom could close. The British government raised the tax rate on online casino operators from 21 percent to 40 percent in April, and the rate on online sports betting rises from 15 percent to 25 percent in April 2027. Chief executive Stella David said the new taxes could add £100 million to the company's bill. She also cited EY modelling indicating that a 40 percent rate could produce up to 1,470 betting shop closures and 15,900 job losses, and a net loss to the Exchequer of around £120 million.
A Court Ruled Gary Benson Cannot Collect The Debt Because He Was The Bookmaker
The Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney dismissed Gary Benson's claim to recover almost A$50,000 from fellow poker player Michael O'Grady and ordered Benson to pay legal costs. Judge Scott Nash found that a ledger recording 211 betting transactions between May 2022 and February 2023, with agreed odds, a running balance and credit extended to O'Grady, amounted to acting as a bookmaker. Benson was unlicensed, and the New South Wales Unlawful Gambling Act 1998 makes a debt from unlicensed bookmaking unenforceable. Benson had already won a judgment over the same debt in July 2023 for A$45,035.94, then surrendered his enforcement rights under a later agreement for A$48,711.84 that O'Grady was to pay out of future tournament winnings.
Aaron Pinson Pulled $150,000 In Bounties Out Of A $500,000 Prize Pool
Aaron Pinson won the $2,200 Big Big Borgata Mystery Bounty in Atlantic City and left with $199,825, close to 40 percent of the event's $500,000 prize pool. The tournament guaranteed two $50,000 bounties and two $25,000 bounties, and Pinson drew both $50,000 slips, for $150,000 in bounties. He and Matt Glantz chopped the remaining prize money heads up and flipped for the trophy, which Pinson won.
ACR Bans Player for Real-Time GTO. He Still Lost $13.12.
09/18/26ACR Poker permanently banned the account UGLYRETD on September 17 after a video circulated on social media showing the real time assistance tool TrenirusGTO running live alongside the ACR client. The site's security and game integrity team said the account was created on August 2, deposited $14.13, and played for exactly one day: 65 hands at $0.05/$0.10, 27 hands at $0.02/$0.05 and 19 hands at $0.01/$0.02. Across all 111 of them it recorded a net loss of $13.12, finishing a dollar short of break even with a machine telling it exactly what to do the whole time. Seven players who lost money directly to the account will be refunded for the affected hands and notified within 24 hours.
Wagner Died In This Palace. It Now Guarantees A Million Euros.
La Notte Degli Assi returns to the Casino di Venezia from October 11 to 19 with a 1,000,000 euro guaranteed Main Event. The house opened in 1638 and is the oldest casino in the world. The cards get dealt in its second home, a 15th century Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal that housed Venetian Doges and where Richard Wagner spent his final days. Entry starts at 400 euros across four early flights and rises to 600 euros for five later ones, each dealing a 200,000 starting stack. The schedule also carries a 1,500 euro High Roller and a 60 euro mega satellite awarding 25 seats.
$46.2 Billion In Tribal Gaming Is Arguing With A Crypto Bill
The Indian Gaming Association has urged Congress to vote down the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, the crypto bill sponsored by Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming that would hand the CFTC authority over parts of the digital asset market. IGA chair David Z. Bean called it the largest expansion of CFTC authority since the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill and said the agency has already been allowing gaming to occur on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket. The association wants the text to say plainly that state law, tribal gaming law and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act are not preempted by federal commodities law. Tribal casinos reported $46.2 billion in gross gaming revenue last year.
He Shoved A Seven High Flush For Value And Got A Fold
Nik "Airball" Arcot moved all in on the river on Hustler Casino Live holding the seven high flush, and Ryan Garcia folded the jack high flush face up. Arcot had the seven and six of hearts, Garcia the jack and three of hearts, on a king, ten, nine of hearts flop. Arcot shoved the deuce of diamonds river for Garcia's remaining $194,500. Garcia showed his cards as he released them, and Arcot said he had thought he was ahead.
They Locked Up $6,795,000, Then Played For The Other $140,000
09/17/26Nick Schulman won the $100,000 buy-in Main Event at the Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju II on Wednesday at Les A Casino in Jeju, South Korea, taking $3,854,888 from a 196-entry field and a $19,600,000 prize pool. It is the largest score of his career and his second Triton title, the first having come in the same room in 2018. Heads-up began with Schulman holding a three-to-one lead over Bernhard Binder, and the two immediately made a deal worth $3,714,888 to Schulman and $3,080,112 to Binder, which left $140,000 and the trophy as the only things still in dispute. On the last hand Schulman limped the button for 1,000,000 with two kings, Binder raised to 3,500,000 with king-jack, and the board ran ace-eight-deuce, five, ten. Binder bet the flop and the turn, checked the river, called Schulman's shove for his last chips and was shown the kings. Binder took $3,080,112 for second. Two days earlier Schulman had finished second in a $50,000 event at the same festival for $810,279, at the time the sixth-largest cash of his career.
He Won $3.85 Million And Led The Points Race For One Day
Schulman's Main Event win brought 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points and moved him to 7,556, an outright lead of 58 points over Punnat Punsri. On Thursday the festival's closing event, a $30,000 turbo with 23 entries and a $690,000 prize pool, paid five places. Punsri finished fourth for $81,000 and 126 points, which put him at 7,624 and back in front by 68. Wang Ye won that turbo for $256,000 and his first Triton title in his twentieth cash on the tour. The festival closed with $103.2 million awarded across 14 events and 1,752 entries.
The Winner Made $304,180 Less Than The Man He Beat
Nick Petrangelo won the $150,000 10th Anniversary Special at Triton Jeju II, a 67-entry event with a $10,050,000 prize pool where first place was scheduled to pay $2,765,000. He and Joao Simao struck a heads-up deal that gave Simao the larger share, $2,517,090 against Petrangelo's $2,212,910, and then agreed to put the rest in blind every hand until somebody won. It took three. Petrangelo doubled twice and took the remainder on the third. Adrian Mateos finished third for $1,286,000, Miroslav Atanasov fourth for $990,000 and Thomas Boivin fifth for $783,000.
The $250,000 Amateur Event Has An Approval Committee
The World Series of Poker announced a $250,000 buy-in Pro-Am bracelet event for WSOP Paradise, December 2 to 17 at Baha Mar in the Bahamas. Professionals may register on their own, but amateurs must apply to a WSOP Pro-Am committee, which reviews each application and decides. It is one of 21 bracelet events on the Paradise schedule, headlined by a Super Main Event with a $50,000,000 guarantee.
A Man Who Plays Twice A Year Beat 1,282 People, Then Quit
09/16/26Pierre Chevalier won the 1,500 euro WSOP Circuit Paris Main Event at the Partouche Pasino Club on Tuesday, beating 1,282 entries for 260,000 euros, his first Circuit ring and a 5,000 euro package to WSOP Paradise. It is the largest field a WSOP Circuit Main Event has ever drawn in Europe. Chevalier plays once or twice a year, has cashed in 13 or 14 of the 15 or 16 tournaments he has entered in his life, and had to change his train to be there for the final table. The table he beat included Davidi Kitai in fifth for 63,000 euros and Luca Bernardi, the start-of-day chip leader, in third for 123,000 euros. Hervé Gouzil finished second for 175,000 euros. Chevalier then announced he is almost done playing.
Thirty-Five Men Played A Turbo And $1,750,000 Changed Hands
Ben Tollerene won the $50,000 turbo bounty at Triton Jeju II on Monday night, taking $412,000 in prize money plus $240,000 in bounties for a $652,000 night and his fifth Triton title. The field was 28 unique players and seven re-entries, 35 total, for a $1,750,000 prize pool. Six places paid. Tollerene lost about three quarters of his stack to Daniel Rezaei without a showdown, doubled back, and finished the heads-up match in two hands. Rezaei took $465,000 for second and Ding Biao $241,000 for third, one night after Ding lost the $200,000 Invitational heads-up for a career-best $4,940,000.
Congress Is Now Discussing Repealing What Congress Did
The House Ways and Means Committee is taking up the FULL HOUSE Act this week. The bipartisan bill, filed in January by Steven Horsford of Nevada and Max Miller of Ohio, would repeal the gambling provision in last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act that caps deductible gambling losses at 90 percent. A player who breaks even for the year now owes tax on money that does not exist. Separately, Dina Titus of Nevada said her FAIR BET Act has finally been attached to a tax package moving through the House, after it was cut from a defense bill in September 2025 and rejected from a spending bill in January. A floor vote is not guaranteed.
16,455 People Entered A $400 Tournament And Brazil Won It
Roberto Firmino Santos Filho won the $400 Colossus at the 2026 WSOP Online on GGPoker for $752,277 and a bracelet, topping 16,455 entries. The prize pool came to $6,187,080 against a $5,000,000 guarantee. Evaldas Narmontas finished second for $579,973 and Matthew Vengrin fourth for $344,876, denying Vengrin a second bracelet. It is Brazil's sixth bracelet of this online series, putting the country on top of the leaderboard and in line for a $200,000 country freeroll.
Joao Simao Bluffed Twice, Got Caught Twice, and Won $7,250,000
09/15/26The $200,000 Invitational at Triton Jeju II closed on Monday with a record 173 entries, a $34,600,000 prize pool and Joao Simao of Brazil holding the only part of it anybody remembers. He reached heads-up play with 66 big blinds against Ding Biao's 38. A deal was discussed and not agreed. Ding then looked up a Simao bluff with top pair, looked up a second one with second pair, and turned that deficit into a lead of nearly five to one. Simao got value with queen ten on a board of ten, nine, nine, three, three, drew a hero call out of Ding holding king six, and was level again. Trip eights put him in front. On the final hand Ding limped the button for 1,000,000 with the ten of hearts and the nine of spades and Simao raised to 2,300,000 with the king of spades and the king of diamonds. The flop came nine of hearts, five of spades, five of diamonds. Simao led for 1,400,000, Ding raised to 3,000,000, Simao called. The two of spades turned, Ding moved all in for 5,600,000 and Simao called quickly. The seven of diamonds finished it. Simao took $7,250,000, Ding $4,940,000 and Seth Davies $3,470,000 in third.
They Chopped $1,647,000 and Then Played Heads-Up for $30,000
Matthew Wantman won the $50,000 seven-handed event at Triton Jeju II, outlasting 70 entries from 49 unique players and a $3,500,000 prize pool for his first Triton title. He got heads-up with Nick Schulman, one of his closest friends, and the counts were virtually even when they got there, so the two of them cut an almost even deal and left $30,000 on the table for whoever finished the job. Wantman doubled on the first hand of heads-up play. Schulman doubled back once. On the last hand Wantman held the ace and jack of hearts against Schulman's queen and seven of spades. Wantman was paid $836,721 and Schulman $810,279. Americans swept the podium, with Ben Tollerene third for $448,000. Daniel Dvoress went out fourth for $344,000 and six-time champion Danny Tang sixth for $213,000. Schulman's only other Triton title came in Jeju eight years ago, in the first Triton event he ever entered.
Jean-Noel Thorel Called a Three-Bet With Three-Deuce and Flopped Quads
The $100,000 Main Event at Triton Jeju II is days from finishing and may already have had its hand of the tournament. At Level 5, blinds 1,000/2,500, Jean-Noel Thorel opened to 5,000 from middle position holding the three of clubs and the two of clubs. Nick Petrangelo three-bet to 20,000 from the button and Thorel called out of position. The flop came three of hearts, two of diamonds, three of diamonds and Thorel check-called 20,000. The king of hearts turned and Thorel check-called 80,000. The three of spades completed the board and gave Thorel four of a kind. He checked a third time. Petrangelo bet 300,000, leaving 36,000 behind, Thorel check-raised, and Petrangelo called off with the ace of hearts and the ace of clubs for aces full. Thorel went to more than 1,000,000 chips and Petrangelo went home. At the last reported break Thorel led the field on 1,200,000, ahead of Quan Zhou on 966,000 and Defeng Chen on 720,000.
The $500 Tournament Takes 17 Percent. The $10,400 Takes 5.77.
A decade of live tournament rake figures published Tuesday set four buy-in levels against their 2015 and 2019 equivalents, and the shape of the answer is the story. At the top the movement is small. The WSOP $10,000 Main Event went from 5.99 percent to 7. The L.A. Poker Classic Main Event went from 4 percent to 7. The WPT's $10,400 Championship went the other way, from 6.73 percent down to 5.77. At the bottom it is a different chart entirely. The WSOP $500 Colossus charged 11.50 percent in 2015 and charges 17 percent now. A Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood multi-flight around $400 went from 14.29 percent to 18. The WSOPC $400 multi-flight held at 17.50 percent, which in this company counts as restraint. EPT Prague's 5,300 euro Main Event has not moved off 8.49 percent in eleven years. The study was prompted by a question Patrick Leonard posted last October asking whether the data existed at all.
Semi Sun Turned a Pair of Eights Into a Bluff. Yang Wang Turned It Into $2,820,000.
09/14/26The $200,000 Invitational at Triton Jeju II drew 173 entries and built a prize pool of $34,600,000, of which 31 players would see a cent. Semi Sun came into hand-for-hand play with the chip lead at his table and left before the bubble burst. At Level 20, blinds 30,000/60,000 with a 60,000 ante, Yang Wang raised to 140,000 and Sun called on the button. Wang bet 225,000 on a seven of clubs, seven of spades, eight of spades flop, then 450,000 on the ace of hearts turn. Sun raised to 1,100,000 and Wang called. The queen of spades completed the board and Wang checked. Sun moved all in for 2,100,000 with the eight of clubs and the five of clubs, a pair of eights he had decided to stop believing in. Wang called with the ace of diamonds and the seven of hearts for a full house. Sun finished 32nd for nothing. Thirty-first place paid $305,000. Wang finished fourth for $2,820,000.
1,282 People Entered the Paris Main Event. First Place Pays Less Than Jeju Pays for Thirty-First.
The WSOP Circuit Paris 1,500 euro Main Event at the Partouche Pasino Club drew 1,282 entries and reached its final table on Monday with nine players left. Luca Bernardi led on 12,100,000, ahead of Mathieu Selides on 10,575,000 and Herve Gouzil on 8,500,000. Gouzil got there by three-betting into Pierre Chevalier's pocket aces with pocket jacks and flopping a set. Davidi Kitai is seventh in chips on 5,600,000, Natasha Mercier fifth on 7,600,000. The winner takes 260,000 euros and ninth takes 20,500 euros. Will Kassouf finished 55th for 5,100 euros.
The Hall of Fame Changed the Rules to Admit More Than One Person. It Admitted One Person.
The Poker Hall of Fame overhauled its voting process this year so that more than one player could be inducted in a single class. In the Class of 2026, exactly one name reached the 22-vote threshold: Jason Koon. Scott Seiver, Isaac Haxton and Shaun Deeb all missed. Scott Seiver went through the result at length with Phil Laak and Brian Rast on the Late Reg Podcast. In his own account of why it stung, "me knowing I'm great in my own head wasn't enough." The reward he wanted, he told them, was his peers saying the life he spent on this was worth remembering.
Poker's Anti-Stalling Enforcement Mechanism Is One Man Walking Over and Having a Word With You
Justin Hammer, the Live Events Director for PokerAtlas and a tournament director at Thunder Valley, published a column on Sunday about meeting Lucas Jumalon, the reigning WSOP Main Event champion, at the WSOP Circuit stop running at Texas Card House in Austin. At an earlier Circuit event Hammer had been called to Jumalon's table as the floor, after players complained that he was taking a long time with a table break approaching. Hammer told him he thought the practice made the game miserable for recreational players. This weekend Jumalon reminded him of the conversation and said he no longer does it. Hammer wrote that he cleared the story with Jumalon before publishing, that he does not think he is an angler, and that he expects him to be a good ambassador for the game. The actual argument of the column is for shot clocks. A shot clock would have made the entire exchange unnecessary.
Phil Ivey Lasted One Orbit of the $200,000 Invitational. It Is the Second Time He Has Done That.
09/13/26Phil Ivey was the first player eliminated from the $200,000 Triton Invitational in Jeju, South Korea. He walked in on the best run of anyone in the building: two final tables at the Super High Roller Series Jeju II and the top $400,000 bounty from the series' $40,000 mystery bounty event. In the opening level he three-bet to 10,000 on the button with the ace of clubs and the ace of hearts and got a call from Lithuanian pro Gytis Lazauninkas. The flop came four of clubs, nine of diamonds, two of hearts, which was good news for exactly one of them. Ivey bet 15,000, then 45,000 on the three of diamonds turn, and Lazauninkas raised to 250,000 holding the nine of hearts and the nine of clubs. Ivey tanked for several minutes with 212,000 behind in a pot that had reached 445 big blinds, then called. An ace or a five would have won it for him. The river was the three of clubs. This is the second Triton Invitational Ivey has been first out of, after Cyprus, and the rebuy that followed was the first $200,000 added to a prize pool already sitting at $24 million.
Global Poker Left New York Last Year. The $8 Million Arrived Wednesday.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an $8 million settlement with VGW Holdings on Wednesday, closing the state's case against the operator of Global Poker, Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots. The Office of the Attorney General sent VGW a cease-and-desist letter in June 2025 over accusations it was running illegal online gaming platforms, the company exited the New York market after that, and legislators passed a sweepstakes ban in December 2025. So the leaving happened first and the paying happened Wednesday. The settlement includes penalties and no admission of liability. James said the platforms "posed a dangerous threat to New Yorkers and their financial and mental health." VGW said it "appreciates the NYAG's recognition of VGW's cooperation throughout its investigation." It will keep running its games in the state in gold coins mode, the one that does not pay out. VGW had operated in New York since 2012. Maryland regulators ordered sweeps operators out in 2025, a California ban took effect this year, and the platform left Canada entirely in May 2025.
Springfield Is Suing MGM Over the Gap Between 3,000 Slot Machines and 1,600
The City of Springfield, Massachusetts filed suit on September 3 against MGM Resorts and Blue Tarp Redevelopment, the entity that operates MGM Springfield, alleging breach of the host community agreement the two sides signed in 2013. That agreement calls for no fewer than roughly 2,800 to 3,000 slot and video gaming machines. It also calls for 75 to 100 table games, a poker room and a high-limit area. The suit says the casino operates with about 1,600 machines and about 50 table games. The city alleges shortfalls on staffing levels too, and on the refurbishment of a nearby building. MGM, which notified Mayor Domenic Sarno in 2024 that it was weighing a sale of the property, called the case "frivolous litigation" and "another tactic to delay and obstruct the process," and wants the dispute sent to arbitration. The city says arbitration falls outside the agreement. City Solicitor Stephen Buoniconti said MGM and Blue Tarp "remain in breach of their contractual obligations." MGM Springfield opened in 2018 and its poker room has 16 tables.
Japan Has Won Sixteen of the Twenty-Nine Titles Awarded So Far in Korea
The PokerStars APPT Korea series runs September 3 to 14 at the Paradise Hotel and Resort in Incheon, and through 29 completed events, 16 have been won by players from Japan. China has four. Tomohiro Kawada took the KRW 600,000 no-limit hold'em Paradise City Kickoff over 171 entries for $11,051, beating Canada's Dong Yan heads-up, and it was the second live cash of his career. Takahiro Ichikawa won the KRW 450,000 pot-limit Omaha double stack over a field of 17 for $2,069, his first tournament win anywhere. Shion Sakamoto won the KRW 900,000 mystery bounty, the largest field of the series so far at 246 entries, for $21,378. Kenji Arai took the KRW 3,500,000 mystery bounty high roller over 20 entries for $13,653. Kaiwen Wei of the United States won the KRW 1,800,000 mini high roller over 30 entrants for $13,410, and Seunghyun Michael Nam won the knockout high roller over 23 entrants for $11,927. Linda Lahdenpaa won the KRW 2,500,000 high roller turbo over 23 entries for $16,499. The biggest events on the schedule have not finished.
Patrik Antonius Folded a Straight to a Straight Flush. He Was Right. He Lost Ten Million Dollars.
09/12/26Ossi "Monarch" Ketola and Patrik Antonius each bought in for $10 million for a heads-up match at the Triton Super High Roller Series in Jeju on Friday, the largest heads-up match in livestream poker history. Ketola took all of it. The decisive stretch began when Ketola held the queen and nine of hearts against Antonius, who had the king of diamonds and the nine of spades. The flop came queen of spades, eight of hearts, jack of hearts, the ten of hearts arrived on the turn, and Ketola had a straight flush while Antonius had a straight and no outs. Antonius called a check-raise to $1,600,000, then folded to a $4.1 million river shove, which was correct and did not help. On the very next hand he got all in with the ace and king of diamonds against a four-bet jam of $4.1 million holding the king and jack of clubs, and the jack of spades landed on the turn. Antonius lost $10 million, the biggest single-match defeat in livestream poker history.
Kiat Lee's Eight Sealed Envelopes Were Worth $700,000. A Day Later He Was Out in Sixth.
The envelopes are open. Wai Kiat Lee's eight mystery bounties from Thursday's $40,000 event at Triton Jeju II were worth $700,000 on top of the $619,000 he won for the title, so his fourth Triton trophy in eighteen months came with roughly $1.32 million attached. He then came back Friday and made the final table of the $50,000 no-limit hold'em eight-handed, where Aliaksei Boika's pocket sixes ended his run in sixth for $361,000.
They Divided $2,602,000 Before Playing Heads-Up, Then Settled the Rest With King Four Against Queen Eight
Pedro Padilha won the $50,000 no-limit hold'em eight-handed at Triton Jeju II for $1,400,860, becoming the fourth Brazilian to take a Triton title. He reached heads-up with a commanding lead over Nick Petrangelo and the two agreed an ICM deal that locked up $1,201,140 for the runner-up and left around $200,000 still in play. It did not stay in play long. Petrangelo called off with king four against Padilha's queen eight, an eight came on the turn, and the tournament was over. Phil Ivey finished seventh for $271,000 after running pocket nines into Petrangelo's pocket jacks, one of three players Petrangelo eliminated with a pocket pair at that table.
Ren Lin Is Eleventh in the Player of the Year Race and Bubbled Two Tournaments Before the Day Was Out
Ren Lin bubbled the $50,000 no-limit hold'em eight-handed at Triton Jeju II, getting the ace of hearts and the queen of diamonds in against Nick Petrangelo's pocket aces. That was the third time he has bubbled a Triton event. Later the same day he was the last player eliminated without a payout in the $30,000 turbo, where only 11 of 70 entries were paid. He sits eleventh in the 2026 Card Player Player of the Year standings with 5,404 points, four titles and thirteen final tables.
Twelfth of Thirty on Wednesday Night. Every Chip in the Building on Thursday.
09/11/26Mayukh Chakraborty of Canada won the CA$5,000 WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event at Playground in Kahnawake, Quebec, beating a field of 2,844 entries for CA$1,500,000 and the first WSOP Circuit ring of his career. He began the final day twelfth in chips out of the thirty players left, with 5,500,000 and 54 big blinds. Benjamin Veenstra finished second for CA$1,000,000 and Jack Salter third for CA$750,000. Chance Kornuth, who two days earlier called for the exact river card that eliminated Daniel Negreanu from this tournament, finished fourth for CA$600,000. The tournament ran three Day One flights across six days and is the largest live poker tournament ever staged in Canada.
The Record Prize Pool Shrank by CA$392,472 Between the Chip Counts and the Trophy Photo
Two prize pool figures are in circulation for the same tournament. Live reporting on Wednesday put the WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event prize pool at CA$13,082,400 from 2,844 entries. The WSOP's own announcement of the champion on Thursday night put it at CA$12,689,928 from the same 2,844 entries. The difference is CA$392,472. Both accounts call it the largest prize pool in Canadian poker history and both are right about that part. Neither has been corrected, amended or explained, and the published payouts from first through ninth are identical in both.
Kiat Lee Won the Tournament on Thursday. He Finds Out What He Won on Friday.
Kiat Lee of Malaysia won the $40,000 mystery bounty no-limit hold'em event at Triton Jeju II, topping 133 entries. The final hand was Lee's jack of clubs and ten of clubs against Jamil Wakil's ace of hearts and six of spades, and Lee flopped a ten. He has $619,000 from the main prize pool and eight sealed mystery bounty envelopes worth a minimum of $40,000 each, which sets his floor at $939,000 and his ceiling at whatever is in the envelopes. They are opened at a ceremony in Jeju on Friday. The tournament's $5,320,000 prize pool was split precisely down the middle: $2,660,000 in ordinary prize money and $2,660,000 in envelopes.
Punnat Punsri Took Over the Player of the Year Race by Busting Fourth
Four-handed at the Triton Jeju II $40,000 mystery bounty, Punnat Punsri got all in with the ace of hearts and nine of diamonds. Alex Anton was also at risk with the ace and king of diamonds, and Jamil Wakil covered both with the king of spades and jack of clubs. The board ran out king of clubs, jack of hearts, eight of spades, nine of hearts, five of hearts. Wakil's two pair took it, Punsri finished fourth for $229,000, and the 462 Card Player Player of the Year points attached to that finish moved him past Brandon Wilson into first place in the 2026 race.
The Heads-Up Match Lasted One Hand. Dvoress Had Pocket Threes and Made a Wheel.
09/10/26Daniel Dvoress won the $30,000 no-limit hold'em eight-max event at Triton Jeju II on September 9, beating 135 entries and a $4,050,000 prize pool for $942,000 and his seventh trident trophy. He took a 4.5 to 1 chip lead into heads-up play against Xuan Liu and needed one deal to finish it. The chips went in preflop. Dvoress held the three of spades and the three of clubs, Liu the king of hearts and the queen of spades. The board came jack of hearts, four of diamonds, two of clubs, ace of spades, five of hearts. Dvoress made a wheel. Liu took $638,000 for second, the second-largest score of her career. It was the second time the two Canadians had played heads-up for a Triton title, making them the first pair in the tour's history to do it twice. Last spring in Montenegro, Liu won that match and $860,000 and became the first woman ever to win a Triton event.
Stephen Chidwick Busted in Fifth and Crossed $80 Million on the Walk to the Payout Desk
Chidwick got the last of his chips in with the ace of spades and the king of diamonds against the jack of hearts and jack of clubs of Gytis Lazauninkas at the Triton Jeju II $30,000 final table. Lazauninkas rivered a set of jacks and Chidwick finished fifth for $279,000. That $279,000 carried him past $80 million in career live tournament earnings, making him the second player in the history of the game to get there. He sits on $80,243,075, behind only Bryn Kenney on $92,002,616. Lazauninkas went out third two knockouts later, but his $424,000 was the largest live score of his career.
Paul Klann Has $1.17 Million in Career Earnings. He Won $1.004 Million of It in 2013.
Klann bagged 11,300,000 chips, or 113 big blinds, to lead the final 30 of the CA$5,000 WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event into Day 5 at Playground. The tournament drew 2,844 entries for a CA$13,082,400 prize pool, the largest ever produced by a WSOP Circuit event, and pays CA$1,500,000 to the winner on Thursday. Klann has $1,170,830 in recorded live earnings across a thin Hendon Mob page, and $1,004,090 of that came from winning the 2013 WPT L.A. Poker Classic out of 517 entries. His only recorded cash since, before this run, was a min-cash in the CA$2,500 WSOP Circuit Montreal Main Event at this same venue last year. He built his lead in part by calling a large bluff from Will Givens while holding the nut flush, a pot that ended Givens's tournament before he could bag.
Blake Ellinghaus Had $140,000 in Career Cashes. Wednesday Paid More Than Twice That.
Ellinghaus won the $5,000 WPT bestbet Scramble Championship in Jacksonville for $294,900 and his first WPT title, beating Jared Reinstein heads-up after rivering a straight and moving all in. Reinstein, who had flopped a straight draw and paired the river instead, took $184,000. Ellinghaus is from Illinois and had roughly $140,000 in recorded live tournament cashes before this week. He entered through a $580 satellite. He finished Day 1a second in chips, finished Day 2 second in chips, and took the chip lead on Day 3. At the final table he spent the evening giving stacks away and taking them back. Hugh Membrino doubled through him and then went out sixth for $57,000, holding top pair with the worse kicker. Skyler Dennis doubled through him and went out fourth for $100,000. Bryan Paris finished third for $135,000 when his pocket nines ran into pocket jacks.
Chance Kornuth Called for the Ace of Diamonds by Name. The Dealer Produced It.
09/09/26On Day 4 of the CA$5,000 WSOP Super Circuit Main Event at Playground in Kahnawake, with 99 players left and blinds at 25,000, Daniel Negreanu opened to 50,000 from the hijack with the ten of diamonds and the ten of clubs. Chance Kornuth three-bet to 140,000 from the cutoff with the ace of clubs and the king of hearts. Negreanu jammed 725,000 and Kornuth called. The flop and turn came five of hearts, six of spades, five of spades, three of clubs, leaving Kornuth six outs and one card. He asked the dealer, out loud, for the ace of diamonds. The dealer supplied the ace of diamonds. Negreanu finished 99th for $14,500 and high-fived the man who had just ordered his elimination off a menu.
Jeju Ran Two $25,000 Tournaments at Once. Winning the Bigger One Was Worth $329,000 More.
Two $25,000 no-limit hold'em events at Triton Jeju II finished on September 8. Khoa Anh Ngo beat 210 entries and a $5,250,000 prize pool for $1,090,000 and his first trident trophy. He closed it on the eighth hand of heads-up play, limping the button with the eight of clubs and the five of spades. Anatoly Filatov check-shoved the flop with the queen of clubs and the eight of spades, Ngo turned two pair, and Filatov took $733,000 for second. Aliaksei Boika beat 131 entries and a $3,275,000 prize pool in the eight-max version for $761,000, ending it with top pair against a combination draw held by Philip Sternheimer, who took $516,000. Isaac Haxton finished third in Ngo's event for $515,000, raising his career total to $68.3 million and his seventh place on poker's all-time money list. Phil Ivey went out 34th in the same tournament, on the same day, in the same room.
He Started Playing Poker This Spring. His First Recorded Live Cash Was $51,000 in South Korea.
Reda Achnit of Morocco had no prior live tournament cashes on record. He picked the game up this spring, won an online freeroll on CoinPoker, and used it to enter the $25,000 eight-max at Triton Jeju II, where the other 130 entries included Michael Watson, Jesse Lonis, Artur Martirosian and Daniel Rezaei. Achnit outlasted all four of them, surviving to the final 15 before Seth Davies knocked him out in 14th place for $51,000. Davies is a CoinPoker ambassador, so the site ran the freeroll that put him in the field and then supplied the player who took him out of it.
The WPT's Jacksonville Field Fell by 34, Then by 33. The Final Six Play Today.
The $5,000 WPT bestbet Scramble Championship drew 294 entries this year. It drew 327 in 2025 and 361 in 2024. First prize has tracked the field down the stairs, from $347,850 to $315,350 to the $294,900 on offer today, each figure including a $10,400 seat in the season-ending WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Day 2 ended with 21 players and Caleb Powell bagging 1,785,000, or 119 big blinds. Six players are at the table in Jacksonville right now with blinds at 25,000 and 50,000, playing a live-streamed final table for a title on the same Mike Sexton Champions Cup that Nick Yunis lifted here two years ago.
The Biggest Prize Pool in WSOP Circuit History Is in Quebec and the Locals Are Not Sharing
09/08/26Late registration closed on the CA$5,000 WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event at Playground in Kahnawake with 2,844 entries and a prize pool of CA$13,082,400, which is CA$3,082,400 past a guarantee that was already the largest ever offered in a Canadian poker tournament. Day 1A drew 851 entries by itself and Day 1C drew 830. Day 3 finished with Canadian Rayan Chamas on top of the displayed standings with 5,200,000 chips, up from the 825,000 he bagged out of Day 2A, which is a sixfold day and the kind of run that usually gets a nickname. William Givens of the United States is second on 4,000,000 and Jonathan Bussieres of Canada third on 3,400,000. Six of the ten leading stacks are Canadian. The man who led the field into Day 3, a Canadian listed by WSOP LIVE as Mario Lemieux, does not appear in the top ten that came out of it. Day 4 begins today, alongside a CA$25,000 Super High Roller starting at 3pm.
The WSOP's Argument for Two New Festivals Is a Tournament That Has Not Finished Yet
At 10am Eastern on Sunday, with the Super Circuit Canada Main Event three days from a winner, the WSOP announced two more Super Circuit festivals. WSOP Super Circuit KINGS runs at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic from October 28 to November 11, 2026, with a EUR 3,000 Main Event carrying a EUR 2,000,000 guarantee. WSOP Super Circuit LATAM debuts at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic from January 24 to February 2, 2027, with a $3,500 Main Event and a $2,000,000 guarantee. The announcement cited Canada throughout as proof the format works, describing the still-running Main Event as having established a new benchmark as the largest poker tournament in Canadian history. The WSOP news index has published nothing about how that tournament is actually going since September 3.
Kelly Slay Had Less Than Two Big Blinds Left. Three Hands Later She Had Thirty-Two.
Kelly Slay was down to under two big blinds on Day 2 of the WPT bestbet Scramble Championship in Jacksonville. She tripled up under the gun with jack of clubs and three of clubs, flopping top pair. The next hand she moved in from the big blind with ace of spades and seven of hearts against ace of clubs and ten of diamonds, was dominated, flopped trip sevens and turned a full house. The hand after that she shoved the small blind with two black fives, got called by Justin Zaki holding king of hearts and jack of hearts, and turned a set. That put her on 388,000. She later moved all in for 364,000 on an eight, six, five flop against Blake Ellinghaus, who folded, and she bagged 490,000. Twenty-one players return today from a field of 294 entries and a $1,337,700 prize pool, led by Caleb Powell on 1,785,000. First place is $294,900, of which $10,400 is a ticket to a different tournament.
PokerStars Will Crown 350 World Champions This Month. The First Notable One Paid $33,250.
Espen Jorstad won WCOOP 02-H, the $1,050 PKO Warm-Up, on September 7 under the alias SamSolverel. He went into heads-up play against the Finnish player realsuhisjii facing a four to one chip deficit, closed it in a single hand by rivering a straight, and finished it by three-betting ace-king and firing three barrels into a rivered two pair. The 154-entry field produced a $154,000 base prize pool. Jorstad's $33,250 was $14,359 in prize money and $18,891 in bounties, which is to say most of what he won for winning was for knocking people out. It is his third WCOOP title, after 2023 and 2024, and he is the 2022 WSOP Main Event champion from a field of 8,663.
The Best Result of ACR's $15 Million Week Belonged to Someone Who Entered the Wrong Tournament
09/07/26ACR Poker closed its Dual Mystery Bounty Venoms with 6,030 combined entries and $15.095 million in final prize pools, and the most efficient piece of decision-making across both events was a misclick. A player under the handle R88P meant to register for the $12 million guaranteed No-Limit Hold'em Venom and registered for the Pot-Limit Omaha Venom instead. They then finished 13th in the game they had not meant to enter and pulled the $250,000 top PLO Mystery Bounty, for $275,840.23 overall. The actual champions were Deltoid88, who beat Brazilian pro Ivan Limeira heads-up in the NLH event after a deal for $799,522.82 in prize money and $66,347.71 in bounties, and ImWinninAnyway, who took the PLO title for $365,192.14. The NLH field of 4,792 entries came in eight short of the number needed to fund its own guarantee, so ACR wrote a $20,000 overlay to round the prize pool up to $12 million. Somewhere below all of it, a player called LavenderBrown finished 348th, drew the $500,000 top bounty, and left with $508,220.48, of which $3,220.48 was for the poker. ACR pro Chance Kornuth reached both final tables at the same time and won neither, banking $188,734.88 for the effort.
Bally's Owes $4.5 Billion, Is Worth $500 Million, and Has Just Lost the Person Who Tracked Both Numbers
Bally's Corp. executive vice president and chief financial officer Mira Mircheva resigned effective Friday, citing personal reasons, and will stay through September 30 to hand things over. She leaves a month after the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission that its debt load raises substantial doubt about its ability to continue over the next year. The company carries roughly $4.5 billion in debt against a market capitalization of about $500 million, a ratio that makes the phrase substantial doubt read like an act of corporate optimism. President and board member George Papanier takes the interim CFO job, a role he also filled in 2023, so the search for a permanent replacement begins with the man who did it last time. The company is meanwhile committed to a $1.7 billion permanent casino in Chicago that needs another $400 million over two years, a complex beside the new Oakland A's stadium in Las Vegas, and a $4 billion project in the Bronx. The temporary Chicago casino it opened three years ago lost $56.4 million in revenue in the first half of 2026 alone and now carries a total deficit of $233.3 million.
Caesars Picked Up the Argument a Tribe Won With in Florida and Pointed It at a Tribe in New York
Caesars Entertainment has moved to dismiss the Cayuga Nation's federal suit over mobile sports betting offered on tribal land, and the argument it reached for was the one the Seminole Tribe of Florida built. That reasoning holds that a bet legally occurs wherever the operator's servers sit, not where the person tapping the phone is standing, which let the Seminoles serve all of Florida from tribal property. Caesars now says the same logic makes its own bets legal statewide in New York, Cayuga land included, because that is where its servers sit. It adds that any conflict between New York's framework and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is the Nation's argument with New York, not with Caesars. The company geofenced Cayuga lands after a 2025 cease-and-desist letter but did not answer the Nation's requests for data on wagers already placed there. Cayuga has until September 22 to respond and Caesars until September 29 to reply.
Ontario Gets a C$1 Million Online Main Event, and the Prize for Winning It Is a Ticket to a Bigger One
GGPoker's WSOP Online Ontario bracelet series returns September 13 through October 6 with eight bracelets and C$2,950,000 guaranteed across them, an average of nearly C$370,000 per event in a province of fifteen million people. The C$1,000 Main Event carries a C$1 million guarantee, double last year's, and buy-ins across the series run from C$300 to C$1,500. Every bracelet winner also collects a trip to WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December. The Main Event champion's package runs to C$42,000 and includes thirteen nights at Baha Mar plus entry to the $26,000 Super Main Event, a tournament guaranteeing $50 million. The seven other winners get C$7,000 packages and four nights. The series was apparently held back until the WSOP Super Circuit at Playground in Kahnawake finishes on September 12, so Ontario's online bracelets start the following day. That live festival guarantees a record C$14 million across 18 ring events, the largest WSOP Circuit stop ever staged in Canada.
After Thirteen Final Tables, Klemens Roiter Finally Wins a Triton Title. He Did It With Seven Deuce.
09/06/26Klemens Roiter of Austria has finally converted thirteen consecutive Triton final tables into a trophy, the poker equivalent of a man who buys thirteen lottery tickets a week for a decade and is somehow surprised when one hits. He won the $20,000 No-Limit Hold'em Eight-Max at the Jeju stop on September 6, beating a 174-entry field for $771,000 and his first Triton title, by doing the one thing nobody teaches: checking seven-deuce in the big blind and getting there anyway. The board ran out ten-seven-five-seven-five, turning his garbage into a full house, and he shoved the river into Alejandro Lococo's queen-high, which called, because that is what queen-high does when it has run out of better ideas. Roiter's career tournament earnings now exceed $15.7 million, a number that says he has been fine this whole time, title or no title. He is also the second different player to win a first Triton trophy in Jeju in as many days, after Alexandros Theologis got there first on September 5, which means the house has now handed out two decades of pent-up frustration in forty-eight hours.
A Married Couple Just Combined for Four WSOP Circuit Rings. One of Them Then Left for Pickleball.
Eric and Lauren Bunch, a husband-and-wife team from Collinsville, Oklahoma, have spent the Hard Rock Tulsa WSOP Circuit series quietly assembling a four-ring household, the kind of domestic arms race no anniversary card accounts for. Eric took Event #1 ($400 The Opener, $16,939), Event #4 ($400 Mini Main, $46,800) and Event #9 ($400 40-40-40, $27,205), his third, fourth and fifth career rings, a pace that suggests he has simply stopped losing. Lauren, not to be out-collected, won Event #3 ($300 Pot Limit Omaha, $8,245) for her own third career ring, and then went ahead and out-lasted her husband directly, finishing 4th in Event #9's $400 Big O while Eric bricked out in 7th at the same final table. Having apparently decided the marriage's ring quota had been met for the week, Eric then flew home for a pickleball tournament, leaving Lauren alone in Tulsa to keep grinding the series, which runs through September 7.
The Poker Pro Who Streamed a Hellmuth Heads-Up Match Is Now Closing Two Casinos and Cutting 238 Jobs
Maverick Gaming, founded and led by Eric Persson, the high-stakes poker player who once turned a heads-up match against Phil Hellmuth into a livestream event, will close the Great American and Riverside casinos in Tukwila, Washington on November 1, 2026, eliminating 238 jobs. The closures follow Maverick's 2025 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which listed between $100 million and $500 million in both assets and liabilities; S&P Global withdrew its ratings on the company in June 2025. The company points to a weakened local economy, tech-sector layoffs thinning its own customer base, high operating costs and regulatory constraints specific to non-tribal operators in Washington, a tidy list of external forces for a company that expanded aggressively enough to end up here.
PokerStars Opens a 121-Event, $6.5 Million Festival the Same Week a Live Main Event Can't Report Its Own Field Size
PokerStars opened its World Championship of Online Poker on September 6, a 121-tournament festival running through September 30 with buy-ins stretched from a change-in-the-couch $5.50 all the way to $25,000, proof that the company has found a price point for literally everyone. The six championship events carry combined guarantees of more than $6.5 million. There's a $2.5 million guarantee on the $10,300 NLHE High Main Event on September 27, a $2 million guarantee on the $1,050 Medium Main Event the same day, and a $1.25 million guarantee on the $109 Low Main Event, roughly the tournament equivalent of a value menu with a seven-figure prize. Three PLO Main Events follow on September 28 with guarantees from $100,000 to $400,000, in case anyone finished the first round of Main Events and still had money left.
Alexandros Theologis Already Had Ten Million Dollars. He Still Wanted the Trophy.
09/05/26Alexandros Theologis of Greece already had ten million dollars in career earnings, proof he did not need a Triton trophy to count as a success. He went and won one anyway, taking his first Triton Poker title at the series' Jeju stop on September 5: the $15,000 buy-in kickoff event for $642,000 from a field of just 206 entries, a remarkably small crowd to hand out that much money to. Triton's Jeju stop was the tour's active festival at the time, and Theologis's breakthrough came the same week Jason Koon and Stephen Chidwick sat atop Triton's all-time cashes leaderboard heading into the series, good company to keep even before the win. Theologis now carries recorded career earnings of $10,197,777, including a $908,154 win at the 2025 European Poker Tour Malta €100,000 Super High Roller.
Bill Simmons Admitted to Proxy Betting on His Own Podcast. FanDuel Reported Him to Regulators.
09/04/26Bill Simmons, founder of The Ringer and a man who has built a meaningful chunk of his media career narrating other people's bets, went on his own podcast and narrated one of his own. He said he gave his FanDuel login to his daughter's boyfriend so the 21-year-old could place sports bets for him, while Simmons was in California and the bets needed to originate from Massachusetts. Proxy betting, wagering through someone else's account or on someone else's behalf, happens to be prohibited under both Massachusetts sports wagering regulations and FanDuel's own terms of service, which state plainly that an account is for personal use only, a detail that apparently did not come up during the podcast recording. FanDuel voided the bets, actioned the account, and reported the whole episode to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which said it is reviewing the comments. FanDuel has noted, for anyone still unclear on the stakes, that proxy betting can result in a permanent account suspension.
Chance Kornuth Played Two Different Seven-Figure Final Tables at Once. He Lost Both.
09/03/26Chance Kornuth spent August 31 and September 1 doing something most players would need a week to recover from just watching: final-tabling both Americas Cardroom Mystery Bounty Venom events at the same time. There was the $2,650 buy-in NLH Venom, carrying a $12 million guarantee across 4,792 entries, and the $2,650 PLO Venom, carrying a $3 million guarantee across 1,238 entries, and Kornuth was seated at both simultaneously like a man who had forgotten the concept of enough. In the NLH event his pocket nines ran into an opponent's ace-four, the board rolled out ace-five-four-eight-six for aces up, and he was out in 7th for a merely respectable $131,395. In the PLO event he actually made it heads-up for the title, only for his ace-queen-jack-two to fall to eventual champion 'ImWinninAnyway's kings full on a runout of ace-nine-nine-king-four, finishing second for $182,924. Add it up and Kornuth walked away with $314,319 across two different seven-figure-guarantee final tables and zero trophies. Call that the best consolation prize in poker, or the cruelest arithmetic, depending on his mood. 'Deltoid88' won the NLH event outright for $865,868.
Benjamin Rolle Rivered a Flush Nobody Saw Coming and Won His Second Bracelet Online
09/02/26Benjamin Rolle, the German pro who plays as 'bencb789,' won the 2026 WSOP Online $1,500 Millionaire Maker on September 1, the kind of result that makes a solver quietly close its own laptop. He beat 5,518 entries out of a $7,863,150 prize pool for $1,366,929 and his second career bracelet. He closed it out against Loris Gauthier heads-up in a hand that had no business working: Rolle checked his option in the big blind with queen-three of clubs, the flop came queen-eight-four with one club, the six of clubs turned, and the king of clubs rivered him a flush out of nowhere. Gauthier, playing a hand that had been correct up until that exact card, raised into it and called off his last 14.2 big blinds with king-ten for top pair, exactly what a made hand is supposed to do against a checked marginal holding. The win came less than a year after Rolle beat 5,961 entries in the 2025 WSOP Online Main Event for a career-best $3,900,707, so this is starting to look less like variance and more like a pattern. He is a CoinPoker ambassador, founded the Raise Your Edge training site, and now has roughly $6.8 million in recorded scores, most of it apparently earned by getting there on the river.
Eric Wasserson Wins the Biggest Televised Pot in Poker History, Twice, in the Same Week
09/01/26Eric Wasserson broke the biggest record in his sport's television history, and then, because apparently that wasn't enough content, broke it again two days later. On the August 31 broadcast of High Stakes Poker he won a $4,260,000 pot off Michael 'Texas Mike' Moncek, the largest pot in the show's history and the largest televised poker pot in United States history, blowing past Tom Dwan's $3.1 million pot from 2023 like it was standing still. Wasserson raised to $20,000 with nine-seven of diamonds, Moncek reraised to $80,000 with ten-seven of clubs, and the two of them watched a flop of ace-king-nine with two diamonds turn into a very expensive problem. A five of diamonds on the river handed Wasserson a flush, and the pot ballooned to $4.26 million on a $2,000-$4,000 game running a $20,000 big blind ante. That is a lot of zeroes for what started as two people arguing about a flush draw. This was Wasserson's second record-breaking pot in three days: he'd set the previous record, a mere $2.5 million, at the same table two days earlier. He finished the session $2.4 million richer and is now the winningest livestreamed cash game player in poker history among anyone who built their bankroll exclusively at the felt. That title exists for one reason: he is extremely good at this.
Fabiano Kovalski Won Two EPT Barcelona Titles in Three Days. The Casino Should Put His Name on a Suite.
08/31/26Fabiano Kovalski of Brazil has decided one specific building in Barcelona is simply where he lives now, financially speaking. He won the EPT Barcelona €10,300 High Roller on August 29 for $843,645, his personal best, outlasting a 429-entry field and closing a heads-up deal with runner-up Igor Picone worth $691,267. That was his second title of the same series: two days earlier he'd already taken the €3,250 Mystery Bounty event for $447,099, presumably as a warm-up. He cashed for more than $1.3 million across four scores during the festival, and six of his eight largest career paydays have now come at this one casino, a loyalty rate most punch-cards can only dream of. His lifetime tournament earnings reached $4,758,530, good for Brazil's top 10 money list, and all of it strongly suggests the building itself deserves a cut.