List of largest poker tournaments in history (by prize pool)

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.

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

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.