54 Fun Facts About the WSOP That You Probably Didn’t Know

The longest-running and richest tournament series, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is poker’s pinnacle event of the year and an iconic one many poker players dream of playing.

The first WSOP began in 1970 with only a handful of players. Since then, it has blossomed into a hugely popular series, attracting thousands of players across the globe every year. The 2023 WSOP promises to be the biggest one yet. Although the series began in the US, it has expanded to multiple continents, with events taking place nearly worldwide.

To celebrate the return of the world’s most famous poker series for the 54th time, we bring you 54 intriguing facts about the World Series of Poker that you probably didn’t know.

• Since 1970, WSOP has awarded more than $3.8 billion in prize money over 1700 bracelet events.

• There have been over 1.7 million entrants across WSOP’s 50-year-plus-long history.

• In 2022, nearly $350 million in prize pool was generated across both live and online bracelets.

• WSOP has had three venues since its inception. From 1970 to 2004, the events were held at Binion’s Horseshoe. In 2005, the event was shifted to Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. In 2022, the WSOP returned to the strip and was held at Bally’s (now rebranded as Horseshoe Las Vegas) and Paris Las Vegas.

• The average age of the last fifteen Main Event Champions is 29.

• The World Series of Poker brand is the inventor of the ever-growing Mystery Bounty format. The first-ever Mystery Bounty was meant to run as part of the WSOP 2020 live series, but due to COVID-19, the series was canceled, and the format could not be tested out. Wynn borrowed the idea a year later and ran its own version.

• In 2022, WSOP collected nearly $33 million in the form of staff and tournament fees.

• With over $300 million in prize money, the WSOP is one of the richest sports events.

• In 2008, PokerStars qualified well over 2000 players to play the WSOP Main Event, representing roughly about 30% of the 2008 Main Event field.

• Though everyone knows Chris Moneymaker, who sparked the online poker boom by winning his 2003 Main Event seat in an $86 buy-in satellite on PokerStars, it is Tom McEvoy, actually the first player to have won the Main Event after winning his entry via satellite back in 1993.

• The first-ever online bracelet event was hosted in 2015. It drew 905 entrants, creating a prize pool of $859,750.

• In 2018, Florida native living in New Jersey, Matthew Mendez, took down a $565 buy-in PLO online bracelet to become the first player to win a gold bracelet outside Nevada.

• 298 bracelets have been awarded online so far across WSOP.com and GGPoker platforms. This year, at least 34 will be awarded on WSOP.com for players in the US, and more bracelets could be given out to international players on the GGPoker platform.

• The cheapest bracelet ever hosted came for a buy-in of $50. It has been held twice online on the GGPoker platform in 2020 and 2021, attracting 44,576 and 30,810 runners, respectively.

• In 2022, more bracelets were awarded online than live. Out of 198 gold bracelets held that year, 110 were held virtually, and 88 took place in-person in Las Vegas.

• The final table of online bracelet Event #13: $5300 NL Hold’em HR Championship in the shared WSOP NJ/NV network will be played in person on the Las Vegas strip. It marks the return of the hybrid online/live bracelet event after a gap of seven years.

• The biggest-ever online bracelet event was held in 2020 on the GGPoker platform. The $5K Online Main Event attracted 5802 entrants, generating a prize pool of $27,559,500. The tournament is also awarded an official Guinness World Record for the largest prize pool for a single online poker tournament.

• The Big 50 event in 2019 holds the record for the largest turnout in a live WSOP event. The event drew 28,497 entrants and amassed a massive prize pool of $13.5 million.

• In 2020, the WSOP Main Event was played as a hybrid online-live event. The online portion was held on WSOP.com and GGPoker platforms, while the final table was held in person in Rio, Las Vegas.

• Players from 68 different countries have won WSOP bracelets, with the United States, unsurprisingly, top on the table by far, with 1486 wins coming from US players.

• Wendeen H. Eolis from New York is the first woman to ever cash WSOP Main Event (1986) as well as the first to do it twice (1993).

• Farhintaj Bonyadi is the first mother of a bracelet winner to also win a bracelet. In 2018, Bonyadi took down the Super Seniors event for $311,451. Her son Farzad Bonyadi is a three-time bracelet winner.

• WSOP 2022 Main Event saw 375 ladies participants, representing 4.32% of the total field.

• Across the entire live series in 2022, 10,529 non-males participated, representing 5.8% of total entries.

• The first-ever Ladies Event: a $100 Ladies Seven-Card Stud was held in 1977.

• Barbara Enright is best known as the only woman to have reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event in 1995.

• Annette Obrestad is the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet. She accomplished this feat at the 2007 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE).

• The first-ever WSOP Champion in 1970 was decided from a vote by the players. There was no tournament held, instead, seven players played cash games, and Johnny Moss was voted as America’s best poker player.

• The tournament version of the WSOP Main Event was held for the first time in 1971. It had a $5k buy-in and attracted seven players. Johnny Moss once again became the Main Event champion, taking home $30,000 as the first-place prize.

• With 16 bracelets won, Phil Hellmuth has won nearly 1% of all bracelets given out to date.

• Apart from Hellmuth, only three more players have won ten WSOP gold bracelets; Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, and Johnny Chan have each been ten-time WSOP champions.

• Daniel Negreanu holds the record for the most WSOP cashes with 217, 15 cashes ahead of Roland Israelashvili, who is in second place with 202.

• Doyle Brunson eliminated Rounders star Matt Damon in the 1998 WSOP Main Event. Damon had participated in the event to promote his film.

• Four players have won the Main Event in consecutive years. They include Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Stu Ungar.

• Only six players have won three bracelets — the most WSOP wins in a single year. They include Puggy Pearson (1973), Phil Hellmuth (1993), Ted Forrest (1993), Phil Ivey (2002), Jeff Lisandro (2009), and George Danzer (2014).

• Phil Hellmuth is the only player thus far to win both the WSOP Main Event (1989) and WSOP Europe Main Event (2012).

• Phil Hellmuth also holds the record for the most runner-up finishes, finishing 2nd 14 times.

• Joe Cada is the youngest Main Event winner. The Michigan native achieved this feat in 2009 when he was just 21 years old.

• Jesse Alto from Texas is best known for making seven final table appearances at the WSOP Main Event.

• Antonio Esfandiari holds the record for most WSOP earnings with $22.3 million, $18 million of which came in 2012 when he took down the Big One for One Drop event.

• The oldest man to ever play in the WSOP is Jack Ury, who participated at the age of 97.

• Phil Ivey is a ten-time bracelet winner, but he has yet to win a bracelet in a Hold’em variant.

• Jamie Gold is currently the record holder for winning the largest tournament prize pool in WSOP’s Main Event history, taking home $12 million after his win in 2006.

• The first-ever million-dollar cash prize in WSOP was awarded in 1991 to Brad Daugherty after he won that year’s Main Event.

• Back in 1970, there were fewer than 50 poker tables in the entire city of Las Vegas.

• WSOP was televised for the first time in 1973 on CBS Sports.

• The coveted gold bracelets were only introduced in 1976.

• Bracelets were temporarily replaced in 1982 with a gold wristwatch. However, these were once again replaced with the return of the bracelet from 1983 onwards.

• The infamous November Nine concept was introduced in 2008 and continued until 2016, before the concept was shelved.

• WSOP has awarded 114 bracelets in Europe and 15 in the Asia Pacific.

• 25 players became millionaires in last year’s series.

• Out of 88 live bracelet events held in 2022, 71 of those produced prize pools of at least $1 million.

• In 2005, following Chris Moneymaker’s famous win that sparked the online poker boom, the field size got so big that players were forced to play 11-handed at times.

• WSOP 2022 Main Event winner Espen Jørstad won his way through a $1050 buy-in satellite on GGPoker.