Largest Poker Winnings

A hypothetical PokerStars USA network, combining the player pools on PokerStars MI, PokerStars PA and PokerStars NJ, would be among the largest online poker networks in the world, the latest data collected by pokerfuse reveals.

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Based on data tracked by independent industry monitor GameIntel, provided exclusively under license to our big brother Poker Industry PRO, we can see that if PokerStars were permitted to combine the shared liquidity of its three existing online poker networks, it would boast more than 1000 average concurrent cash game players.

This would put it among the largest networks globally. It would be similar in size to the global player pools of partypoker, 888 and iPoker. It would be approximately half the size of dominant European operator Winamax.

The only networks that would clearly tower over it would be PokerStars' own global online poker network, which boasts north of 8000 concurrent cash game players, and GGPoker, which sits at approximately 5500.

And of course, this does not take into account the network effect of combining these player pools. More games running around the clock, more varied games, bigger tournaments and SNGs firing off quicker would make for a more attractive poker offer. This would likely have a compounding effect, and a PokerStars USA network could move into the top five global online poker networks easily.

PokerStars USA: The world’s largest online poker room is legal and regulated in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey!

• Great bonus$30 freeplay or Up to $600 deposit match bonus.
• The world’s most regulated online poker room.
• Great cash game traffic and some of the best weekly guaranteed MTTs.
• Stars rewards program rewards play across poker, casino and sports.

How Likely is a PokerStars USA Network?

The idea that PokerStars might be able to combine its three disparate online poker rooms in the United States into a single network is not far-fetched at all. It could certainly happen in 2021.

We already have one cross-state network—the WSOP/888 Network, which shares liquidity between Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware. While it is not yet possible to do the same to Michigan and Pennsylvania, this could change in the near future.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks has been a recent interpretation on an old Wire Act law which prevented bets on contests made across state lines. However, the courts in the United States have made it quite clear that this applies to sports contests exclusively. While the DOJ could appeal this to the US Supreme Court, there is no guarantee it will do so, nor whether the Court would agree to even hear the case.

It is hoped that this is the final nail in the coffin by anti-online poker lobbyists to try and prevent the expansion of safe, legal and regulated online poker in the United States.

In light of this recent ruling, operators are preparing for more market launches. 888 and WSOP anticipate expanding their network, first in PA, later in Michigan.

The Partypoker US Network is also expected to expand soon into PA and MI, with BetMGM possibly leading the charge. This is first expected to be closed liquidity, just like PokerStars, but its entrance is a clear sign that operators are hopeful more cross-border liquidity sharing is on the cards.

• A $100,000 Guaranteed Sunday Special.
• Multiple online tournament festivals a year with $10 million+ series guarantees.
• Big push with live events.
• Well over a thousand cash game seats filled on average, with many thousands playing at peak times.

Three Separate PokerStars Rooms—For Now

PokerStars is one of the best positioned to take advantage of this when it happens. It has operated the only online poker room in Pennsylvania, PokerStars PA, for over a year, which currently boasts over 400 concurrent cash game seats.

Then there is PokerStars Michigan, which launched just a couple of weeks ago. It immediately rocketed to the top of the charts for regulated US online poker. Traffic continues to climb, with the latest figures putting it on more than 500 average seats.

Finally, there is the long-established PokerStars NJ. There, it faces more competition, with both WSOP/888 and Partypoker/BetMGM/Borgata all running their own online poker rooms. Still, as the sole independent operator it manages around 100 to 150 concurrent cash game seats.

Therefore, all combined we can expect out of the gate the combined liquidity to be north of 1000 concurrent seats, and it can be expected to climb immediately with the network effect and marketing push.

Data provided by GameIntel

What To Expect from Tournaments and Cash Games on PokerStars USA

Perhaps the closest comparison is PokerStars’ segregated European online poker room. This combines liquidity of players in France, Spain and Portugal.

There, the network has around 1300 concurrent cash game players, on average, approximately what we would expect a three-site PokerStars USA network would be. This gives us a pretty good idea what kind of promotions, tournaments, cash games and big MTT series we can expect.

In terms of Sunday tournaments, the operator’s flagship is the Special, which guarantees €100,000 (approximately $120,000), attracting over 1000 entries every week. This is six times larger than what is available in Michigan.

Other big tournaments include a weekly PKO with a €20 buy-in and a €30,000 guarantee—and it often sails past this. Last Sunday it attracted almost 3000 players to generate a prize pool in excess of €50,000.

This is every reason to think that a PokerStars USA network would have a weekly $100,000 to $150,000 tournament and a similar spread of big guarantees throughout the week.

PokerStars Europe: Sunday Majors

Tournament	Buy-in	Guarantee
Sunday Special	€100	€100,000
Progressive KO	€20	€30,000
Mini	€5	€15,000
High Roller	€250	€15,000
SuperSonic	€50	€12,500

When it comes to huge tournament series, again we can expect the offer to completely transform. PokerStars Europe runs massive series all year round—this coming Sunday, for example, a Carnaval Series with €10 million guarantee is about to kick-off. Just prior to that, it spread a monster €15 million Winter Series. Its last Euro SCOOP was €12 million.

To compare, the biggest in the US regulated markets has been PokerStars’ last PACOOP, which guaranteed $1.5 million. The inaugural MICOOP on PokerStars MI, starting this Sunday, guarantees $1 million.

So, if and when a PokerStars USA network launches, we can expect tournament series at least ten times larger than what is on offer right now.

Promotions would be similar. For example, PokerStars is running its new Tetris leader board promotion on PokerStars.com and in Europe. The European version is giving away €23,000 a day, totaling more than €1 million across the six-week promotion. It is fair to say that there is basically nothing like this in the smaller markets.

So, with all that said, PokerStars USA will have promotions, tournaments, and online festivals never seen before in the US regulated markets. And it will no doubt face fierce competition from the likes of 888, WSOP, partypoker, BetMGM and others.

It will be a time like no other for US regulated online poker—a boom time for players and for operators. All we need is regulators to join the MSIGA shared liquidity pact—and it’s a go.

PokerStars USA: The world’s largest online poker room is legal and regulated in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey!

• Great bonus$30 freeplay or Up to $600 deposit match bonus.
• The world’s most regulated online poker room.
• Great cash game traffic and some of the best weekly guaranteed MTTs.
• Stars rewards program rewards play across poker, casino and sports.

For the last eight years, the largest tournament in the world has been the World Series of Poker Main Event. With the exception of 1992, the US$10,000 buy-in tournament increased in prize pool year-over-year from its start in 1970 until 2007 (the latter a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which reduced the number of players winning their seats via online play).

The first tournament to reach a million dollar prize pool was the 1983 WSOP Main Event. The WSOP Main Event of 2004 had the first prize pool of above $10,000,000.

The largest non Hold'em Tournament has been the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE with a prize pool of $7,104,000 and the first prize of $1,989,120 going to Scotty Nguyen.^[1]

Below are the 30 largest poker tournaments with respect to the prize pool in United States dollars and not number of entrants. This list includes live and online poker.

Largest Poker Winnings

Currently, 14 of the 15 largest prize pools in history have been WSOP Main Events. The second largest prize pool outside of the Main Event is the 2012 WSOP event known as The Big One for One Drop, held from July 1–3. It featured a buy-in of US$1 million, the largest in poker history. Of the buy-in, $111,111 was a charitable donation to the One Drop Foundation, and the WSOP took no rake. All 48 seats available for that event were filled, resulting in a prize pool of $42,666,672, with over 5 million dollars donated.^[2] The second largest pool for any event outside of the WSOP was the 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge, with a HK$2 million (US$260,000) buy-in plus a rebuy option. The event drew a field of 73, of which 21 made a rebuy, resulting in a prize pool of HK$182,360,000 (slightly over US$23.5 million).^[3]

All of the 30 richest tournaments to date were played in No Limit Hold'em.

Event	Prize Pool (US$)	Winner	1st Prize	Ref.
2006 WSOP Main Event	$82,512,162	Jamie Gold	$12,000,000	[4][5]
2019 WSOP Main Event	$80,548,600	Hossein Ensan	$10,000,000	[6]
2018 WSOP Main Event	$74,015,600	John Cynn	$8,800,000	[7]
2010 WSOP Main Event	$68,799,059	Jonathan Duhamel	$8,944,310	[8]
2017 WSOP Main Event	$67,877,400	Scott Blumstein	$8,150,000	[9]
2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million	$65,660,000 (£54,000,000)	Aaron Zang	$16,775,820* (£13,779,491)	[10]
2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million	$65,660,000 (£54,000,000)	Bryn Kenney*	$20,563,324* (£16,775,820) (2nd place)	[10]
2011 WSOP Main Event	$64,531,000	Pius Heinz	$8,711,956	[11]
2008 WSOP Main Event	$64,333,600	Peter Eastgate	$9,152,416	[12]
2016 WSOP Main Event	$63,327,800	Qui Nguyen	$8,005,310	[13]
2014 WSOP Main Event	$62,820,200	Martin Jacobson	$10,000,000	[14]
2012 WSOP Main Event	$62,021,200	Greg Merson	$8,527,982	[15]
2009 WSOP Main Event	$61,043,600	Joe Cada	$8,547,042	[16]
2015 WSOP Main Event	$60,348,000	Joe McKeehen	$7,680,021	[17]
2007 WSOP Main Event	$59,784,954	Jerry Yang	$8,250,000	[18]
2013 WSOP Main Event	$59,708,800	Ryan Riess	$8,359,531	[19]
2005 WSOP Main Event	$52,818,610	Joe Hachem	$7,500,000	[20]
2012 WSOP Event 55 – The Big One for One Drop	$42,666,672	Antonio Esfandiari	$18,346,673	[21]
2014 WSOP Event 57 – The Big One for One Drop	$37,333,338	Dan Colman	$15,306,668	[22]
2016 Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza	$27,437,564	Elton Tsang	$12,248,912	[23]
2019 PokerStars NL Hold'em Players Championship	$26,455,500	Ramon Colillas	$5,100,000	[24]
2018 WSOP Event 78 – The Big One for One Drop	$24,840,000	Justin Bonomo	$10,000,000	[25]
2004 WSOP Main Event	$24,224,400	Greg Raymer	$5,000,000	[26]
2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge Super High Roller	$23,511,128	Stanley Choi	$6,465,560	[27]
Super High Roller Bowl 2015	$21,500,000	Brian Rast	$7,525,000	[28]
2016 WSOP Event 67 – High Roller for One Drop	$19,316,565	Fedor Holz	$4,981,775	[29]
2013 WSOP Event 47 – One Drop High Roller	$17,891,148	Anthony Gregg	$4,830,619	[30]
Super High Roller Bowl 2017	$16,800,000	Christoph Vogelsang	$6,000,000	[31]
2007 WPT Championship	$15,495,750	Carlos Mortensen	$3,970,415	[32]
2013 GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions Main Event	$15,376,897	Niklas Heinecker	$4,456,885	[33]
2011 Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure	$15,132,000	Galen Hall	$2,300,000	[34]

*	Due to a prize splitting deal Aaron Zang received £13,779,491 ($16,775,820) for 1st, original payout for 1st was £19,000,000 ($23,100,000). Bryn Kenney received a larger cash prize of £16,775,820 ($20,563,324) for 2nd place.

Notes[edit]

Largest Poker Winnings Real Money

1. ^Hendon Mob
2. ^Dalla, Nolan (June 30, 2012). 'The Biggest One—World's Most Spectacular Poker Extravaganza Starts Sunday'. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
3. ^Peters, Donnie (August 31, 2012). 'Stanley Choi Wins Macau High Stakes Challenge for US$6,465,746'. PokerNews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
4. ^'2006 WSOP Main Event payouts'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
5. ^Hendon Mob
6. ^https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=541550
7. ^[1]
8. ^wsop.com
9. ^http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/payouts.asp?grid=1352&tid=15673
10. ^ ^abhttps://triton-series.com/triton-super-high-roller-series-london-2019/
11. ^'PIUS HEINZ WINS 2011 WSOP MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONSHIP'. WSOP. 8 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
12. ^Hendon Mob
13. ^'Level 4 concludes: officially the largest main event in the last five years'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
14. ^Poker News Daily
15. ^pokernews.com
16. ^'2009 WSOP main event prize pool'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
17. ^'Event #68: No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT'. 2015 World Series op Poker Chip Counts. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
18. ^Hendon Mob
19. ^'2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker, Event #62: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 20, 2013. Click on the 'Prizepool' tab for the first prize.
20. ^Hendon Mob
21. ^Dalla, Nolan (July 3, 2012). 'Antonio Esfandiari Pulls Off Amazing Trick by Winning One Drop'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
22. ^Hendon Mob
23. ^[2]
24. ^[3]
25. ^[4]
26. ^Hendon Mob
27. ^Hendon Mob
28. ^Hendon Mob
29. ^Hendon Mob
30. ^Hendon Mob
31. ^[5]
32. ^Hendon Mob
33. ^Hendon Mob
34. ^pokerstarsblog.com

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