The largest poker tournament in the world is the annual World Series of Poker Main Event. Poker pros from around the world have the chance to turn a $10,000 buy-in into millions in prize money. Recently launched non GamStop casinos have also been offering poker games millions of dollars to the lucky winning players. Moreover, players can also try their luck to win one of the jackpots on the exciting video poker games.
On this page, we present the highest prize money of the WSOP, take a look at other high-paying WSOP tournaments and compare them with the prize money of the top wins at the World Series of Poker Europe. We also explain how the WSOP prize money is distributed and how much of it the winners are allowed to keep.
The Top 10 Largest WSOP Prize Pools
The top 10 WSOP Main Events with the highest prize money were all held as No Limit Hold’em tournaments. The WSOP Main Event has been running since 1970 and has seen an almost steady increase in total prize money.
Since 2007, however, the World Series of Poker has had to limit the number of entries for tickets won online.
The Top 10 Winners of the WSOPE
The World Series of Poker Europe, WSOPE for short, represents the first expansion of the WSOP outside of the United States.
Although the World Series of Poker has previously held poker tournaments at other locations, players have only been able to win a coveted bracelet at the events in Las Vegas.
The first WSOPE tournament took place in 2007 in London. Other venues since then have been Cannes and Enghien-les-Bains in France, Berlin in Germany and Rozvadov in the Czech Republic.
- €1,450,000 – Annette Obrestadt (Norway) – 2007
- €1,400,000 – Elio Fox (USA) – 2011
- €1,276,712 – Josef Guláš (Czech Republic) – 2021
- €1,133,678 – Alexandros Kolonias (Greece) – 2019
- €1,122,239 – Jack Sinclair (Great Britain) – 2018
- €1,115,207 – Marti Roca de Torres (Spain) – 2017
- €1,094,688 – John Juanda (Indonesia) – 2008
- €1,022,376 – Phil Hellmuth (USA) – 2012
- €1,000,000 – Adrian Mateos (Spain) – 2013
- €883,000 – Kevin MacPhee (USA) – 2015
Which WSOP Events Have the Highest Prize Money?
Each year, the World Series of Poker is made up of many separate poker tournaments called events, each with their own terms, buy-ins and prize money. Which of these events is the most lucrative? We give an overview.
WSOP Main Event
The main event of the World Series of Poker is not only a lucrative poker tournament, it is also associated with the corresponding prestige: The WSOP Main Event bracelet winner can call himself the Poker World Champion.
The surprising success of Chris Moneymaker in 2003 triggered a poker boom, so the number of participants rose sharply in the following years.
In 2006, 8,773 players competed for $82,512,162 in prize money, and American Jamie Gold bagged $12 million. This represents the highest winnings in a poker tournament to date.
Since then, the number of participants has ranged between 6,000 and 7,000, with a field of 8,500 players competing in 2019. Most WSOP Main Event winners have more than $8 million in prize money to their credit, making the tournament absolutely the most lucrative event.
The Millionaire Maker
This WSOP tournament is particularly interesting because the relationship between buy-in and prize pool is quite favourable. The Millionaire Maker gives players the opportunity to turn $1,500 into a million.
The WSOP event has only been held since 2015 and the premiere already attracted 7,275 participants. The winners shared $9.8 million, with first place taking home $1,277,193. Since then, the event has been popular and successful, paying out more than $10 million annually.
The Colossus
The World Series of Poker embarked on another experiment in 2015 with the Colossus tournament, which guaranteed players a minimum of $5 million in prize money for a buy-in of just $565. At the debut, 22,374 participants started in the race for 11.2 million. First-place finisher Cord Garcia took home $638,880.
Over the years, the number of participants dropped and the prize pool shrank to under 10 million, so the organizers lowered the buy-in to just 400 US dollars in order to be able to continue the success. As before, players can turn a few hundred dollars into at least half a million with a Colossus win.
Little One for One Drop
One Drop is a charitable foundation dedicated to improving access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene around the world. The WSOP One Drop Poker events support the foundation.
Little One has a buy-in of just $1,111 and has been running since 2013. Several thousand players ensure prize money totaling several million US dollars. Of this, more than half a million goes to the winner.
In addition to the rake, participants pay a fee that goes to the foundation. The charitable nature of the tournament ensures that not all players are playing aggressively or looking to win, giving weaker entrants a chance at some cash prizes.
The Big One for One Drop
The big brother of the charitable tournament has existed since 2012. A buy-in of one million makes it clear that the event is aimed at wealthy players who want to do charitable work in this way.
The tournament is irregular, but still worthwhile for the fewer than 50 participants, as the winners often make more than 10 million US dollars.
How Are WSOP Prize Pools Distributed Among Poker Winners?
Big prize pools are one thing, but how exactly is a huge sum distributed among winners at a WSOP event? The World Series of Poker puts the field at 15 percent of the participants. The remaining 85 percent form the “bubble” – the so-called bubble comes out empty. So out of a thousand entrants, only 150 will make the money.
They receive at least around 150 percent of the buy-in and can therefore increase their starting sum more than one and a half times. However, the lion’s share of the prize money is reserved for the final table. Most WSOP tournaments pay out at least 40 percent of the prize pool to players at the final table. Around 60 percent of this sum goes to the first three places. Around 14 to 15 percent of the total prize money goes to first place.
The gap is enormous so that the runner-up doesn’t even get 10 percent, but only around 9 percent of the total prize money. How lucrative a WSOP event really is for the participants must always be seen in the relation between buy-in and prize pool.
