In Just Three Years, GGPoker World Festival Has Paid Out Almost $1 Billion in Prize Money

It took only three years for GGPoker’s flagship spring series, the GGPoker World Festival (GGWF), to climb to the top of the online poker world.

With the conclusion of its 2025 edition, the GGWF has now awarded a staggering $895 million in prize money, putting it within striking distance of the $1 billion milestone and securing its status as the most lucrative tournament series in online poker history.

The recent edition ran from May 4 through June 10, featuring a staggering $250 million spread across more than 1,400 tournaments, with buy-ins ranging from just $2.50 to $25,500.

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Once the dust settled, the final prize pool tallied $324.7 million, surpassing the guarantee by nearly 30%. That figure makes the 2025 edition the second-largest online poker tournament series in history, only trailing last year’s GGWF, which awarded $331 million.

The slight year-over-year dip is attributed to a reduced number of complete tournaments on the schedule, but despite that, player participation hit an all-time high. The festival attracted a record 5.6 million entries, the most in GGWF’s three-year history. The average prize pool per tournament came in at $228,874, up from $204,196 in 2024, and only slightly below the 2023 edition’s $233,995.

GGWF 2025 Stats:

• Prize Money Awarded: $324,772,083
• Completed Tournaments: 1419
• Entries: 5,631,076
• Main Event Prize Pool: $10,580,625
• Avg Prize Pool Per Tournament: $233,995
• Avg Entrants: 2977

Among the standout tournaments was the $1,500 GG World Championship, which drew 7,695 entries across multiple Day 1 flights and generated a prize pool of $10.58 million. That wasn’t the only major draw: six headline events with buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $10,300 brought in more than $41 million combined.

In total, dozens of events crossed the $1 million mark in prize pools. Among them was the popular $250 Global Mystery Bounty, which pulled in a massive field and created a $5.6 million prize pool. Another standout was the $10,300 GGMillion$ Super Main Event, which amassed a $11.2 million prize pool, making it the largest of the series.

This year also marked the return of $25,000 buy-in events. More than a dozen such tournaments ran, including variants in No-Limit Hold’em, Omaha, and Short Deck. The GGMillion$ Omaholic Edition was a highlight, drawing 44 entries at a $25,500 buy-in to generate a $1.1 million prize pool. A Short Deck edition with the same buy-in attracted 14 entries, resulting in a $400,000 prize pool. Other NLHE events at the $25K level drew between $100,000 and $600,000.

Meanwhile, the $150 buy-in GGMasters with a doubled $1 million guarantee missed its target on a couple of occasions, resulting in overlays.

Spring Festivals History at GGPoker

Since 2020, GGPoker has made a habit of hosting massive spring tournament series, each with guarantees of at least $100 million. In 2021, the operator ran the GG Spring Festival, which featured $150 million guaranteed and ultimately awarded $176.7 million across 335 tournaments.

The following year, the operator ran another large-scale series with the same $150 million guarantee but under the new moniker GG Online Championship, this time paying out $178.1 million over an expanded 426-event schedule.

Then came 2023, a landmark year with the launch of the GGPoker World Festival (GGWF). The inaugural edition boasted a $200 million guarantee spread across 1,000 tournaments, ultimately awarding $239.1 million, instantly positioning GGWF as a serious contender to the throne of spring poker supremacy.

In 2024, GGPoker upped the ante with a boosted $250 million guarantee for the second edition of GGWF. It shattered overall guarantees, paying out a staggering $331.4 million across 1,623 tournaments, setting the record for the largest online poker series in history.

The 2025 edition retained the $250 million guarantee, and although the schedule was slightly scaled back, it still delivered another massive turnout. In total, $324.7 million was awarded across 1,419 completed tournaments, once again surpassing the guarantee and reinforcing the series’ consistency and appeal.

GGWF History (2023 – 2025)

Across just three editions, the GGWF has now paid out a combined $895 million, attracting 13.8 million entries. The scale and pace of this growth are unmatched in online poker. For comparison, PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), one of the most iconic series in the online poker industry, took more than a decade to reach similar levels.

Since its inception in 2009, SCOOP has awarded $1.48 billion across 3,681 tournaments over 17 editions. While SCOOP’s longevity and prestige are undeniable, the structure of the two series is quite different. SCOOP typically features 150 to 400 tournaments per edition, with its signature three-tier format (Low, Medium, High). GGWF, on the other hand, is built on a much larger scale, consistently featuring 1,000+ tournaments each edition.

Of course, much of GGWF’s volume is driven by its extensive use of Day 1 flights, multi-phase tournaments, and frequent daily events. This contributes heavily to the series’ massive turnout and cumulative prize pools. Even so, reaching nearly $1 billion in prize money in just three years is an extraordinary feat.

At this pace, GGWF is on track to break the $1 billion mark with its next edition in 2026, and by 2027, it could very well overtake SCOOP in total prize money awarded.

GGPoker is currently hosting its microFestival, a low-stakes tournament series featuring $10 million in guaranteed prizes. Every event in the series is priced under $11, with buy-ins starting as low as $1.88. The schedule includes 465 tournaments in total and runs from June 15 to June 29.

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