PokerStars has announced two more stops on its European Poker Tour (EPT) live circuit for 2025. The EPT will head to Malta in October for the first time in almost a decade. Fan-favorite EPT Prague returns in its usual December slot.
EPT Malta is a new stop for the 2025 calendar, with PokerStars not having run a festival in the country since 2016. Malta replaces EPT Cyprus on the tour roster that would take place in the October slot. The event will run for 12 days and feature a €5.3K guaranteed Main Event.
Perennial favorite EPT Prague will return in 2025. This will come as great news for players who year after year turn out in force to support the event — which continually breaks attendance records as well as surpassing its own Main Event record. 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.
There will be a supporting €1,100 Open Main Event boasting a €1million guarantee during EPT Prague.
What makes the return of the EPT Prague surprising is that all signs where pointing to the EPT Prague being canned for 2025. This was due to PokerStars’s exit of the Czech Republic’s online poker market in June last year. It is unusual for PokerStars to run a live event where online poker is not available, as echoed by comments from their Director of Live Events.
“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 earlier this year. “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.”
What PokerStars will or can offer in terms of online support remains to be seen, but is seems other locations could not compete to the allure of Prague.
“It’s very difficult for the EPT to find amazing destinations which tick all the boxes, or as many boxes as we want,” Billot added via 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.”
The two new EPT stops of Malta and Prague bring the tally of EPT live events up to four so far in 2025. Additional stops will take place in Monte-Carlo, and Barcelona. Although it was slated to run, the EPT Paris did not take place in 2025 because of local restrictions in France.
| Live Brand | Dates | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| EPT Paris 2025 | Feb 12 — 23 (Cancelled) | Le Palais des Congrès, Paris, France |
| EPT Monte-Carlo | Apr 30 — May 10 | Sporting Monte-Carlo, Monaco |
| EPT Barcelona | Aug 18 — 31 | Casino Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain |
| EPT Malta | October 1— 12 | InterContinental Malta |
| EPT Prague | December 3 — 14 | Hilton Prague |
To accommodate EPT Prague, the regional PokerStars Open event that was scheduled to take place in Cannes at the same time has had its dates tweaked. Originally PokerStars Open Cannes was slated to run December 8 to 14 in France — a time slot which is usually dedicated to EPT Prague. Since the announcement that EPT Prague is returning, the Cannes dates have been tweaked to run just after Prague wraps up: December 15 to 21.
PokerStars Open is a new brand for the operator, having merged its regional tours to sit within one umbrella term. The Open amalgamates 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 under the one moniker.
| Live Brand | Dates | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| PokerStars Open Campione | Mar 10 — 16 | Casino di Campione, Italy |
| Irish Open | Apr 10 — 21 | Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland |
| PokerStars Open Namur | May 28 — June 9 | Circus Casino Resort, Namur, Belgium |
| PokerStars Open Malaga | June 16 — 22 | Gran Madrid Casino Torrequebrada, Malaga, Spain |
| PokerStars Open Manchester | Oct 20 — 26 | Casino Manchester 235, Manchester, UK |
| PokerStars Open Cannes | Dec 15 — 21 | Casino Barriere Le Croisette, Cannes, France |
PokerStars EPT and Open events will be part of the PokerStars Live League. It is a way for players to earn points in order to win a share of €150,000 in buy-ins, with the top 30 finishers having the chance to audition to become a PokerStars Team Pro. Online qualifiers will be running on Power Path PokerStars’ in-house step-qualification program. Online satellites to select events will be available on PokerStars client in select markets.
The full Brazilian Series of Online Poker has been announced along with all stops making up PokerStars’ popular Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT). The North America Poker Tour (NAPT) is also confirmed as returning for 2025, but PokerStars are remaining coy on the details.
“[We] absolutely plan to bring back NAPT to Las Vegas and make this a regular part of the poker stars live event calendar,” Steve Preiss VP of PokerStars North America told pokerfuse at the beginning of the year. “We are planning to provide more regional events in the Northeast where our players actually play online and tying into live events at properties in those states in the Northeast,” Preiss added.
EPT Malta will take place October 1 to 12 and EPT Prague will wrap up the EPT schedule, running December 3 to 14, 2025.
For the full PokerStars Live 2025 schedule you can check it out here.>>
