Irish Open 2026 Online Satellites Start Now From €1, With Dozens Of Seats Every Week

Online satellites for the Irish Open 2026 are live far earlier than usual, with seats starting at €1 and freerolls on select platforms.

PokerStars, Paddy Power, and a broad lineup of iPoker skins have confirmed weekly seat guarantees across Main Event and selected side events.

Organizers aim to top the record participation of the 2025 edition when more than 1,300 players qualified online and the Main Event set new highs for entries and prize money.

How to qualify online for 2026

PokerStars will award seats starting November 17 and plans at least four qualifier runs each week, guaranteeing dozens of packages across the month. iPoker network brands begin qualifiers on November 10, with frequent seat feeders scheduled almost every other day. Paddy Power will follow later this month and is also rolling out freerolls.

The push comes after a breakout year for online pathways. The 2025 series saw more than 1,200 Main Event seats won on PokerStars and iPoker combined, with nearly 200 qualifiers cashing. Those performances translated into over €14.7 million in total prizes across the festival.

Flutter’s poker portfolio will again be central to the campaign. PokerStars and Paddy Power return as headline sponsors in 2026, with Betfair and Sky Poker set to join the satellite rollout by year end. That continuity mirrors other early live announcements, as PokerStars confirmed its 2026 tour stops, including a March slot for Irish Open.

Entry points start at €1, with wide ladders and direct seat qualifiers featured on both ecosystems. Paddy Power’s freerolls add a zero cost route, an appealing option after last year’s online qualifiers booked seven figure combined cashes in the Main Event alone.

Bigger schedule, bigger ambitions

Irish Open 2026 runs March 26 to April 6 at the Royal Dublin Society in Dublin, Ireland. The festival expands to 86 events, up from 60, with an eye on fresh formats alongside returning crowd favorites.

The €1,150 Main Event carries a €2.5 million guarantee. A €1,150 Luxon Pay Mystery Bounty guarantees €1 million. The €250 Mini Irish Open also boasts a €1 million guarantee, following its record field last spring.

Organizers are adding more mixed games and novelty formats. Debuts in Ireland include a Mixed 8 Game Championship High Roller, a new Ladies High Roller, and a Five Card PLO. Community centric fixtures return, including APAT and dedicated events for Deaf players after a strong showing in 2025.

Several tournaments nod to WSOP innovations and popularized online formats. Kings and Queens will balance entrants across women and men on separate flights. Old Dogs and Young Pups splits the field by age group, echoing the WSOP Battle of the Ages. A fast paced Flip and Go, inspired by WSOP and GGPoker’s concept, traces its live lineage to the format first detailed in the 2021 WSOP schedule.

The lineup also features Sviten Special and Cuatro Knockout, the four way bounty format that gained traction after its EPT Barcelona debut. Variety has been a core driver of growth and will be prominent again across the 12 day slate.

Momentum from a record breaking 2025

Last year’s Irish Open set new marks across the board. The €1,150 Main Event reached 4,562 entries and a €4.45 million prize pool. The Mini Irish Open became the largest poker tournament ever held in Ireland.

A total of 26,474 entries generated nearly €14.8 million awarded, with online qualifiers contributing materially at every stage. PokerStars sent more than 800 online players to the Main Event. iPoker contributed over 450. Almost 200 qualifiers cashed and collectively booked more than €1 million from the Main Event alone.

That pipeline began months in advance and is being replicated earlier for 2026. PokerStars’ weekly cadence and iPoker’s near daily seat feeders are designed to smooth demand and build a broader base of qualifiers across Europe and beyond.

Sponsorship stability helps too. PokerStars and Paddy Power have shared headline billing for three consecutive years and return in 2026. Their involvement coincides with broader plans for PokerStars LIVE next year, where the operator set EPT Paris for February and mapped out a spring run that dovetails into Dublin.

Key Irish Open 2026 details at a glance

Early satellite access gives players a longer runway to plan a seat, pick formats, and aim for specific dates on the schedule.

The festival expects another surge in demand as new formats and expanded mixed game offerings go live.

With qualifiers now running, the road to Dublin begins this month and continues through the winter toward opening day on March 26.