Historic EPT Prague May Not Run in 2025

EPT Prague, one of the flagship stops on the European Poker Tour (EPT), may be under threat for its 2025 outing and not run for the first time in over fifteen years.

PokerStars has not commented on the tour’s future in Prague concretely but via a post on its blog has alluded to the possibility that an alternative location may need to be found. Currently there is no PokerStars presence online in the country, and without such, a PokerStars Live festival is unlikely to run.

“Prague is an amazing live event, but PokerStars as a business has exited the Czech Republic,” Cédric Billot, PokerStars Associate Director of Live Events, said via blog post. “So as much as live poker is amazing in Prague, we still have to make sure that wherever we go there is a link with the online PokerStars element. Therefore, as much as everyone loves Prague — I love Prague — we are of course sometimes looking at alternative countries.”

When PokerStars pulled out of Czech Republic’s online poker market in June last year, the company stated at the time it had no plans to “re-enter the Czech Republic market” in order to come in line with new regulatory stipulations. At that time, the 2024 EPT Prague stop was already scheduled.

For 2025, Prague is not currently listed on the EPT schedule; however, there are only two stops slated for 2025 so far. EPT Paris was expected to start the season in February but was cancelled due to regulatory challenges in France. EPT Cyprus is also absent from the 2025 schedule. That leaves just EPT Monte Carlo in April and EPT Barcelona in August on the calendar at this point.

“It’s very difficult for the EPT to find amazing destinations which tick all the boxes, or as many boxes as we want,” Billot went on to say in the blog post. “Venue location. Accessibility. Availability. Size of the venue. Regulation goes without saying. Regulation of live poker, regulation of online poker. So many boxes to tick for us, which makes the list of potential cities and venues shrink.”

Without the support of online poker in the Czech Republic it’s hard to see EPT Prague running for another year.

Since 2007, PokerStars has run an EPT stop in Prague, which has become a player-favorite on the poker live tour calendar. It has become one of three festivals that compete against each other in the December calendar slot, holding its own against WSOP Paradise and the WPT World Championships.

While EPT Prague does not achieve prize pools the size of WSOP and WPT, EPT Prague is a must-play event for European poker players and lovers of the brand. It has broken its own record for turnout and prize pools the past two years, with the 2024 edition another resounding success.

With all this success, sunsetting EPT Prague would come as a huge blow to PokerStars and fans of the stop.

PokerStars Live Events Scheduled for 2025

PokerStars is also bolstering its live schedule with the creation of the PokerStars Open, a new umbrella brand of regional live stops in Europe. The PokerStars Open has absorbed regional tours such as the Eureka Poker Tour in Central and Eastern Europe, the France Poker Series (FPS), the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT), and Estrellas in Spain.

Six regional 'Open’ stops will take place this year throughout Europe. Notably, a PokerStars Open Cannes event will run December 8 to 14 in France — a time slot which is usually dedicated to EPT Prague. Although PokerStars has said the Cannes stop is not 'replacing’ Prague, it is hard to imagine they will run two live events so close together or indeed overlapping.

No information has yet been released for the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) or the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) that both make up a large chunk of the live schedule beyond European borders. This could mean that the tours will not run for 2025 as information is typically already released by this time, with some events already underway.

However, the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) is bigger than ever with six stops scheduled throughout Brazil for 2025.

PokerStars Live 2025 Stops Confirmed