What's the deal? The info you need to know ahead o…

Anybody who attended summer camp as a kid probably looks back fondly at it. The leather belt you made in arts and crafts, doing cannonballs off the dock into the lake, the nightly campfire where that the “cool” counselor with the guitar and poncho led everybody in singing pop Neil Diamond’s classic “Sweet Caroline.”

Now, imagine that, instead of a week at Lake Kawkawa, summer camp is seven weeks long, it’s in Las Vegas and there are hundreds of millions of dollars up for grabs. That’s how poker players, both professional and amateur, feel about the World Series of Poker, which gets underway Tuesday at Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas.

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Five key events

In the days before leaving for summer camp, you probably started thinking about the things you looked forward to the most. Whether it was archery class, capture the flag or the end-of-camp field day, there was something to be excited about. The WSOP is like that, too. Here are five events that balance the thrills of poker with the drama and prestige for which the WSOP is known.

$550 No-Limit Hold ’em Mini Mystery
Tuesday, May 26-Monday, June 1

The first event on the 2026 WSOP schedule might just be the most fun of them all. Not only does it kick off the summer, but the $550 buy-in allows players of nearly all bankroll levels — from the recreational player to the seasoned pro — to take a shot. Players who advance to Day 2 will earn a mystery bounty for every player they eliminate from that point on, and one lucky player will draw an envelope that contains a $1 million bounty.

$25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold ’em

Friday, May 29-Tuesday, June 2

Only 64 of the biggest swingers come out for the $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship. Think March Madness, but instead of college basketball, it’s one-on-one No Limit Hold ’em playing down from 64 to 32 to 16 to eight to four, and then eventually just two players will battle for the bracelet and a cool half-million dollar, first-place prize. Past winners include Artur Martirosian (2025), Darius Samual (2024) and Chanracy Khun (2023).

The Million Dollar Game
Friday, June 12

This isn’t a bracelet event, but it’s an event not to be missed. It’s an invite-only cash game with a minimum buy-in of $1 million, with blinds starting at $500 (small)/$1,000 (big). The MDG took place at Hustler Casino in Los Angeles the last three years but is moving to Las Vegas as part of the WSOP festivities. The game promises to deliver massive pots, with Alan Keating, Mike Moncek and billionaire DoorDash founder Stanley Tang all part of the field. Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth has teased that he’ll find his way into the game at some point.

$50,000 Poker Players Championship
June 21-26

Over the last five years, the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship has averaged just 94 entrants and broken into triple digits just once (112 in 2022). The steep buy-in is one limiting factor, but even more critical, players have to be able to play nine different poker variants at an elite level if they want to have any chance of winning this one. Don’t let the small field fool you; for many professional poker players, this event is the one they want to win the most.

$10,000 WSOP Main Event
July 2-August 5

It’s the single most important, most prestigious poker tournament in the world, and nearly every poker player has it on their bucket list to participate. It’s held in such high regard because it made legends out of some of the early winners, including Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson and Stu Ungar. Johnny Chan won back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988 before finishing runner-up in 1989 to a young upstart from Wisconsin named Phil Hellmuth. The main event made Chris Moneymaker a household name and a hero to amateur players around the world, leading to the “Moneymaker Effect” poker boom. Moneymaker turned an $86 online satellite entry into a $2.5 million grand prize in 2003. The field that year was 839. In 2004, it was 2,576.

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Six players to watch

Every summer camp had that group of cool kids — the ones that jump off the highest diving board, know all the words to the campfire songs and always get the top bunk. Poker’s summer camp has them too.

Shaun Deeb, USA
WSOP Bracelets: 8

The reigning WSOP Player of the Year has a WSOP resume built on consistency. His eight WSOP bracelets have been won in the last 10 WSOPs (there was no WSOP in 2020 due to COVID). He won Player of the Year twice during that span and is the only player to finish in the top 100 of the POY standings in each of those years. There isn’t a game Deeb doesn’t play at an elite level, and he plays nearly every event on the schedule, from the low buy-in tournaments to the high-roller games stocked with the game’s best players. He also turned 40 earlier this year, which means he is now eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame.

Benny Glaser, England
WSOP Bracelets: 8

Glaser had to settle for a second-place finish for POY in 2025 despite being just the eighth player to win three bracelets in a single year. He is the only player to win three times in one year and not win POY since the WSOP started handing out the award in 2004. He’s also hoping to avoid the curse that seems to follow three-time bracelet winners. Of the seven other players to win three in one year, none have won a bracelet the following year, and the most cashes any of those players recorded was four.

Shiina Okamoto, Japan
WSOP Bracelets: 2

Poker is exploding in popularity in Japan, and one of the faces of that movement is a 36-year-old woman who started playing regularly just four years ago. Okamoto arrived at the 2023 WSOP as a complete unknown. Her second-place finish in the Ladies Championship that summer added $118,768 to her bankroll and offered her some validation of her decision to play poker full time. She returned to Las Vegas in 2024, did the unthinkable by beating her previous performance to win the Ladies Championship and earned $171,732. She somehow topped that last summer, winning the event again and the $184,094 prize to join a very select group of players who have successfully defended a WSOP title.

Martin Kabrhel, Czechia
WSOP Bracelets: 5

Every summer camp seemingly had that one kid who got on everybody’s nerves. Last year, Kabrhel filled that role, with nonstop chatter at the table, stalling during hands with an over-reliance on repetitive catchphrases. As much as his antics — which drew the ire of Shaun Deeb, Alex Foxen and Nick Schulman — grabbed a lot of headlines, Kabrhel also made news for his play. He won his fourth career bracelet, was a Player of the Year threat and sat atop the standings when the Main Event began. He returns this summer with a unique combination of fans and haters who will all be tuned in to see what he might do next.

Scott Bohlman, USA
WSOP Bracelets: 2

The average poker fan can be forgiven if they don’t yet know Bohlman, but that might change this year. The 49-year-old poker pro won his second career bracelet last summer and has finished fifth in the Player of the Year race twice (2018 and 2025). Over the last three years, he has cashed 42 times in live events during the WSOP in Las Vegas, and 27 of them were in mixed games (games other than No Limit Hold’em). He has also shown that he has the chops to hang in online events, where he has 35 cashes over the same three-year span.

Phil Hellmuth, USA
WSOP Bracelets: 17

You can’t talk about the World Series of Poker without bringing up the player whose poker success is synonymous with the brand. Nobody has won more WSOP bracelets than Hellmuth, who has 17 (Phil Ivey is next with 11), and there isn’t a single player who adds more to the spectacle that is the WSOP. Whether he’s running deep in an event with another historic victory in sight, chastising his opponents or making his annual over-the-top entrance to the Main Event, Hellmuth can’t be — or maybe won’t be — left out of the show.

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Five storylines to follow

With 56 years of history to lean on, the World Series of Poker isn’t devoid of storylines heading into the 2026 edition. Whether you’re a poker fan following from home while dreaming of one day playing an event or a regular getting ready to get back to Las Vegas, these are just a handful of the stories that are worth following.

The WSOP returns home to ESPN

The WSOP last aired on ESPN in 2021, and ever since, poker players and enthusiasts alike have been clamoring for it to return. They got their wish this year and will now be able to tune into more than 100 hours of coverage of the main event beginning on July 2 through July 13, when the final nine players take a 21-day break before heading back to Las Vegas to play a three-night live linear finale for the Main Event Final Table. Play resumes August 3 until six players remain, then continues the next day until three players remain, and the new world champ will be crowned live during the final telecast.

New ownership continues to innovate

Online poker operator GGPoker completed its purchase of the WSOP in August of 2024 and has been investing in improving player and fan experience ever since. They spent the first two years embracing technology and borrowed heavily from the online poker experience they have mastered. In 2024, GGPoker launched a mobile app meant to eliminate many of the bottlenecks players were experiencing at live events, but this summer it will be poker fans who notice a shift brought about by the new owners this summer. While ESPN Unlimited will be the home of the Main Event, the WSOP will stream live on YouTube on a nearly daily basis, beginning May 29.

Will the 2026 tax law change impact turnout?

When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July of 2025, it included a change in how gambling winnings are taxed. Will that mean smaller fields in some events this year? Prior to the OBBBA passing, gamblers were allowed to deduct 100% of their losses against their wins — effectively getting taxed only on net winnings. Those same players can now claim only up to 90% of their wagering losses. Players who play a lot of volume could be paying additional thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. Erik Seidel, a 10-time WSOP bracelet winner recently stated he has limited his playing schedule as a result. The WSOP will be the first litmus test of whether American players overall have had to limit their schedules.

Will we finally get a woman winning the Main Event?

No woman has ever won the Main Event. Last summer, Leo Margets became the first woman since Barbara Enright in 1995 to make the final table, before being eliminated in seventh place. Last year, the WSOP reported that just 3.79% of the Main Event field was composed of women — a slight increase from 2024 (3.54%). Traditionally, women make up somewhere around 4% of the overall field. Many in the poker world believe that a second poker boom will come once a woman conquers the Main Event.

Main Event field size

The 9,735 Main Event entries in 2025 represented a down year after the tournament broke the 10,000-player mark for the first time in 2023 (10,043) and then again in 2024 (10,112) for the biggest WSOP Main Event ever. The slight dip last year was most noticeable in the drop in the number of Americans and Canadians playing the event — each was down around 11% — and a rather dramatic 25% decrease in the number of players making the trip from the United Kingdom. Getting back past 10,000 players will need those three groups to return to 2024 participation levels.