BCPoker will run its Halloween Series from Oct. 24 through Nov. 5, offering more than $50,000 in prizes across tournaments, knockout promotions and cash-game rewards. The online room’s first Mystery Bounty tournament is part of the schedule, while the $20,000 guaranteed Apex Halloween on Oct. 31 is the festival’s headline event.

The series begins with a $300 Halloween Freeroll on Oct. 24, followed by another on Halloween. CardPlayer.com reported that a $1,000 Halloween Bounty runs daily from Oct. 25 through Oct. 29, with the first seven players to score a knockout in each event receiving a $7 MTT ticket.

BCPoker’s new $1,500 Halloween Mystery Bounty begins Oct. 30 and runs daily at 18:00 UTC through Nov. 5. It carries an $11 buy-in. In the format, each elimination reveals a previously hidden cash bounty, meaning players do not know a knockout’s value until they claim it.

The room has also scheduled a Halloween Limited Edition Lucky Spin promotion from Oct. 23 through Nov. 5. It offers cash prizes of up to $1,000 and Halloween tournament tickets valued from $2 to $50. Players can earn two spins per day by completing NLHE cash-game missions to play 50 hands and win 12 hands at their assigned stakes; five total spins earn a bonus Halloween ticket.

Tournament knockout results count toward the $1,800 MTT KO Ranking, which runs for the full series and includes daily rewards of up to $5. Separately, the Boosted NLHE Leaderboard pays $1,000 a day to 100 winners based on cash-game play through Nov. 3.

As we reported in September, BCPoker’s previous Apex carried a $15,000 guarantee and followed an edition that produced a $6,090 overlay. Players can find the new festival by filtering the tournament lobby for the Halloween Series on BCPoker’s web, desktop, mobile or Telegram Mini App platforms.

Nicholas Seward won Event #9 of the 2026 Poker Masters, beating Daniel Negreanu heads-up in the $26,000 no-limit hold’em tournament for $412,500. The victory was Seward’s first PokerGO Tour title, while Negreanu collected $262,500 as runner-up and missed out on a 13th PGT win.

The penultimate Poker Masters event drew 50 entries for a $1.25 million prize pool, with the top eight finishers paid. Although the event was labeled a $26,000 NLH tournament, Card Player described the buy-in as $25,000.

Negreanu carried the chip lead into the final day, with Seward second, and had also led on Day 1 while controlling much of Day 2. The heads-up match lasted two hours, beginning with Negreanu ahead 4.2 million chips to Seward’s 3.305 million.

The lead changed hands during the duel. Seward ultimately took a crucial pot with A-spade-6-heart on an A-club-6-spade-3-club, 9-club, 6-club board, making a full house against Negreanu’s flush. Negreanu folded when Seward raised to 2.425 million.

The final hand began when Negreanu three-bet shoved 2.05 million chips, or 21 big blinds, over Seward’s button raise. Seward called with king-jack against Negreanu’s king-ten, and his hand stayed ahead on a 9-spade-3-spade-3-club-5-club-7-club board.

“It feels great,” Seward told PokerNews. He said the $25,000 buy-in made it “a big one” and called the result particularly rewarding as his first victory on the tour. Seward also said facing Negreanu heads-up was special because he grew up watching the Poker Hall of Famer play.

The win was Seward’s second title and 13th final-table finish of 2026. It was the third-largest payday of his career, lifting his lifetime tournament cashes above $5.4 million; his two larger scores were $516,135 for winning the 2024 WSOP $3,000 six-max event and $418,700 for the 2026 World Poker Tour Venetian main event.

Seward’s result also earned 420 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving him into the overall top 50 in the standings presented by CoinPoker. He had four cashes at the Poker Masters festival, including this win and two other top-five finishes.

At the end of Event #9, Seward stood third in the Purple Jacket race with 397 points, behind Adrian Mateos on 451 and Nicholas Palma on 407. Event #10, the $51,000 NLH series finale, was set to decide the jacket and its $25,000 bonus, with Palma, Seward and Jeremy Ausmus still able to overtake Mateos before the event. Mateos was subsequently eliminated from Event #10 with his total fixed at 451 points.

Negreanu, an eight-time WSOP bracelet winner, said he could not win the series leaderboard and chose not to enter the finale. His runner-up finish took his career tournament earnings to $60.36 million, good for 10th on poker’s all-time money list and still first among Canadian players.

PokerStars will open its 2027 PokerStars Open calendar in Campione, Italy, with a Jan. 8-17 festival at Casino di Campione. The stop will be the venue’s third PokerStars Open series after editions in 2025 and 2026.

The Main Event will carry a €1,250 buy-in. Poker.org reported that the figure is a reduction from the previously set price and follows PokerStars’ wider adjustment of buy-ins across its Open events. It is nevertheless €150 higher than the €1,100 Campione Main Event buy-in used in 2026.

The full 2027 schedule has not yet been released. Casino di Campione is the event’s license holder and operator, and PokerStars Live lists the minimum participation age as 18.

Campione’s most recent Open Main Event drew 1,582 entries at the start of this year. Switzerland’s Elvir Nuhiu won the tournament for a little more than €200,000.

The inaugural 2025 Campione Main Event was considerably larger, drawing 2,423 entries and producing a €2.3 million prize pool. Adrian State won €363,000 after a four-day event, while the field filled the venue to capacity.

The casino also recently staged Sunday Million Live, the offline version of PokerStars’ weekly online tournament. As covered in July, PokerStars had revived the hybrid event in Italy; it ultimately attracted 5,213 €250 entries, generated a €1.1 million prize pool and awarded Ettore Santoprete a €100,000 first prize.

Campione d’Italia sits on the shores of Lake Lugano as an Italian enclave within Switzerland, with the euro as its official currency.

ACR Poker’s $2,650 Dual Venom Progressive Knockout tournaments ended Oct. 21 with PushLightYear winning the No-Limit Hold’em title for $536,577 and tigerseyes taking Pot-Limit Omaha for $239,819 after a heads-up deal with Pepareg1.

The two events drew 2,745 entries and produced $6.86 million in prize pools, $362,500 above their combined $6.5 million guarantees. The NLH tournament attracted 2,143 entries for a $5.36 million pool, while 602 entries generated the $1.51 million PLO pool.

PushLightYear, representing Andorra, collected $332,932 in regular prize money and $203,645 in bounties. The winner eliminated Pepareg1 in third place before beating ArkaduktusFrRM heads-up. ArkaduktusFrRM finished with $418,825 overall, including nearly $85,900 in bounties.

Ukraine’s Pepareg1 made both final tables and earned about $446,144 in total. The player took third in NLH for $281,471, then started the seven-handed PLO final table as the shortest stack and reached heads-up against Mexico’s tigerseyes.

The PLO pair agreed to split the regular prize money almost evenly, with tigerseyes receiving $128,622 and Pepareg1 receiving $128,621. Tigerseyes received $111,198 in bounties, while Pepareg1 added $36,051 in knockout rewards to finish second for $164,673.

The Progressive Knockout structure paid players for eliminations from the opening flights onward, with half of each eliminated player’s current bounty added to the eliminator’s own bounty. The October events began Oct. 4 with five Day 1 flights, resumed for Day 2 on Oct. 19 and reached their final tables two days later.

Brazilian players made three final-table appearances and earned about $259,000 in prizes and bounties, according to ACR Poker. Victor Pedote finished seventh in NLH for about $104,088, while José Orlando and Yuri Martins placed fourth and fifth in PLO for about $82,743 and $72,634, respectively. Brazilian players also recorded 45 Day 2 qualifications across the two tournaments.

The next $1,050 WSOP Paradise Mega Satellite is set for Sunday, Oct. 25, at 3:05 p.m. ET, with seven $30,000 packages guaranteed.

The World Series of Poker Circuit has returned to Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada, with 18 ring events running from Oct. 22 through Nov. 2. The mountain stop sits near Lake Tahoe on the Nevada-California border and is led by a $1,700 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.

The opening schedule includes a $400 No-Limit Hold’em tournament restricted to players aged 40 and older, plus a $400 Pot-Limit Omaha/No-Limit Hold’em mixed event. According to WSOP.com, the full slate also includes No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, mixed games and specialty tournaments.

The Main Event’s first starting flight begins at 11 a.m. on Oct. 30, followed by a second flight on Oct. 31. Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe was formerly known as Harveys Lake Tahoe, and the property has renovated its accommodations and refreshed its casino floor.

The stop follows two Lake Tahoe series that each recorded 463 entries, according to WSOP. The fall 2025 Main Event drew that total, while the spring 2026 series matched it. Adam Nattress won the spring Main Event for $139,614.

Eligible winners of 2026 WSOP Circuit rings, including online Circuit events, receive a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package. It includes entry to the $2,750 WSOP Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty and complimentary accommodation at Baha Mar in the Bahamas.

WSOP Paradise runs at Baha Mar from Dec. 2-17, with a combined $120 million guaranteed prize pool.

Wildhorse Resort & Casino will host its 2026 Fall Poker Round Up in Pendleton, Oregon, from Nov. 5-15. The 16-event festival carries $30,000 in added money across its full schedule of 11 standard tournaments and five super satellites.

The $550 no-limit hold’em main event includes $6,000 in added money. Standard-event buy-ins range from $220 to $550, while the $115 super satellites offer players a lower-cost route into the main event, according to CardPlayer.com.

No-limit hold’em is joined by Omaha eight-or-better, an Omaha eight-or-better/seven-card stud eight-or-better mixed game and H.E.R.O.S. The schedule also includes a seniors event for players aged 50 or older. Every event on the schedule has added money.

The fall series follows a busy spring festival at the resort. Michael Jutte won the 2026 Spring Poker Round Up main event for $38,941 after a field of 653 entries built a $315,175 prize pool. It was his second Round Up main-event title, after a 2018 victory, and he has also won three other Round Up events.

The spring stop’s opening $220 event was won by Lucas Jumalon, who outlasted 389 entries for $16,170 on April 26 before winning the 2026 World Series of Poker main event and $10 million. Another former Wildhorse winner, John Wasnock, took down the 2025 Spring Poker Round Up main event for $56,330 from 584 entries, then finished runner-up in that year’s WSOP main event for $6 million.

Wildhorse has staged multiple Poker Round Up series each year for more than two decades. Its history also includes Angela Jordison winning three tournaments across three days at the 2015 Spring Poker Round Up.

Players looking to stay on site can book through wildhorseresort.com, the Wildhorse App or by calling 800-654-9453. The resort also lists preferred partner hotels through its website and app.

Caesars Digital is recruiting a senior product manager for a new online poker product built on a licensed third-party platform, a job listing that points to a possible future change for WSOP Online. The posting does not identify a technology supplier, and neither Caesars nor 888 has confirmed that the US poker room will change platforms.

PokerFuse reported on Oct. 15 that Caesars was preparing the product based on the listing. It described a product with a standalone poker app for iOS, Android and the web, while also bringing poker functions into Caesars’ existing Sportsbook and iCasino products.

The senior product manager would guide the player-facing product from development through launch. The remit includes the player journey, poker lobby, game selection, cashier, responsible-gambling tools and later updates, while a third-party provider would supply the underlying poker technology and connect it to Caesars’ existing iGaming and player-account-management systems.

888 has powered WSOP Online’s US real-money platform since its 2013 launch. According to USPoker, Caesars renewed its software agreement with 888 in 2021 for five years, with the deal due to expire this year. That timing gives the listing added significance, but it does not establish that 888 will be replaced or identify its possible successor.

Any eventual migration would matter across WSOP Online’s four-state shared pool: Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Caesars began pooling Pennsylvania players with the other three states on April 28, 2025, making WSOP Online the only US platform where players in all four jurisdictions could compete in the same pool. Michigan had joined Nevada and New Jersey in May 2024.

The room continued to use 888poker software for its 30-event summer bracelet series, which ran from May 30 through July 14. Its current fall bracelet series has 33 events and concludes with Event #33 on Nov. 10. PokerTube has characterized the series as possibly the last to run on 888-powered software.

The prospective product work comes after Caesars sold the WSOP brand’s intellectual-property rights to NSUS Group for $500 million in 2024. Caesars retained a license to operate WSOP Online in the four states, separating brand ownership from the company’s regulated US online-poker operation.

Keith Lehr won Event #8 of the 2026 Poker Masters, taking $277,200 from a 56-entry $15,700 no-limit hold’em event at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. The 62-year-old beat Vitalijs Zavorotnijs heads-up for his second PokerGO Tour title and first tournament victory since 2024.

The win added 222 PokerGO Tour points to Lehr’s series total, putting him eighth in the Purple Jacket standings with 265 points. He had already cashed in Event #5, where he finished sixth for $42,500.

Zavorotnijs began the Day 2 final table with the chip lead, while Lehr was fourth of the five remaining players. Sam Soverel fell in fifth for $67,200 when his king-queen ran into Lehr’s ace-king, while Nicholas Seward earned $84,000 for fourth and Justin Vaysman collected $117,600 in third.

Lehr started heads-up with 2.995 million chips to Zavorotnijs’ 5.445 million, nearly a two-to-one deficit. He doubled into the lead when his pocket kings held against pocket fours.

The final hand ended in a dramatic cooler. Zavorotnijs turned a straight against Lehr’s top two pair, but a queen on the river gave Lehr a full house. Zavorotnijs received $176,400 as runner-up.

The result denied Zavorotnijs a second title of the series. His 365 points and $400,400 in series earnings moved him into third in the Purple Jacket race, behind leader Adrian Mateos on 451 points and Nicholas Palma on 407.

Lehr’s first PGT win also came at the Poker Masters, when he captured the 2018 $25,000 pot-limit Omaha Event #3 by defeating Jonathan Depa heads-up. His latest result lifted his recorded career tournament earnings above $6.3 million, with 117 recorded circuit cashes dating to 2002.

The $840,000 Event #8 prize pool paid its top eight finishers. The 2026 Poker Masters then continued with Event #9, a $26,000 no-limit hold’em tournament.

PokerStars on FanDuel has absorbed roughly $1.75 million in tournament overlays across its first two major U.S. series since the platform’s April relaunch. Players in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania still received the full advertised prize pools when entry fees did not cover the guarantees.

Legal US Poker Sites calculated that the April Ignite Series accounted for about $1.06 million of the total, while September’s Dynasty Series added $686,740. An overlay is the amount an operator must contribute when buy-ins fall short of a tournament’s promised prize pool.

Ignite ran from April 18 to May 4 with 90 tournaments and $5 million in guarantees. Most events did not draw enough entries to meet their guarantees, but PokerStars on FanDuel did not reduce the advertised payouts as the shortfalls accumulated.

The 100-event U.S. Dynasty Series ran Sept. 12-28, with buy-ins starting at $10. It awarded more than $3.5 million in prize money and drew 31,665 entries, yet 86 events missed their individual guarantees.

That apparent mismatch is because guarantees were measured tournament by tournament. Dynasty’s aggregate prize pool exceeded its combined guarantees, but the operator still covered overlays in the individual events that fell short.

The three No-Limit Hold’em Main Events made up nearly $150,000 of the Dynasty shortfall. The $300 Main Event, which carried a $350,000 guarantee, drew 860 entries and needed a $109,200 overlay. The $50 Main Event missed by $18,125 after attracting 1,250 entries, while the $1,500 High Roller had a $21,650 shortfall.

Pokerfuse said two consecutive series with substantial overlays make it difficult to treat the results as an isolated occurrence. It suggested the guarantees may be an investment in attracting players and building regular tournament traffic, while also cautioning that the figures alone do not show whether guarantees were intentionally aggressive, demand was overestimated, or scheduling and the transition to new software affected turnout.

PokerStars exclusively on FanDuel launched April 1 as a shared-liquidity regulated network for Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The three-state pool is smaller than the markets available to sites operating across more jurisdictions, limiting the potential number of tournament entrants even as it combines players across all three states.

BCPoker will launch a new Welcome Deposit Bonus on Oct. 23 at 10:00 UTC, replacing its previous First Deposit Bonus with a 50% match on eligible cryptocurrency deposits worth up to $1,000. The offer can be used alongside the poker site’s VIP rakeback programme, potentially giving new Bronze-level players a 20% return on qualifying cash-game rake during the bonus window.

SpadePoker reported that the matched amount is not paid as immediately playable cash. Instead, BCPoker releases $0.10 from a player’s bonus pool for every $1 in qualifying cash-game rake, over 30 days from activation. Players keep whatever portion is released, while any balance left uncleared at the end of the period expires.

The structure means a $200 crypto deposit creates a potential $100 bonus, while deposits of $1,000 and $2,000 create potential bonuses of $500 and the $1,000 maximum, respectively. A player who deposits $200 and generates $300 in eligible rake would receive $30, rather than needing to clear the full bonus to receive anything.

Only eligible lobby cash games count toward release, including No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha. Tournament rake, Sit & Go, Spin & Go and club-table play are excluded. The offer is available once per eligible account.

BCPoker’s VIP system pays rakeback from 10% to 50%, with every new player beginning at Bronze on 10%. During the 30-day welcome period, the bonus-clearing rate can add another 10% of qualifying rake if the player still has unreleased bonus funds. On $500 in eligible rake, for example, a Bronze player could receive $50 in VIP rakeback and $50 from the welcome bonus.

Players must select “Poker Welcome Bonus” at the deposit page and deposit at least $20 in cryptocurrency to activate the match. BCPoker says players can defer eligibility by choosing “No Bonus” on an earlier deposit, depositing less than $20 in crypto, or making an initial fiat deposit.

The site says the offer has no KYC requirement by default, although it may request verification for security, payment or compliance reasons. Deposited funds have no turnover requirement, withdrawals do not automatically cancel an uncleared bonus, and released bonus money carries no further wagering requirement.

The Irish Poker Open will return to Dublin’s Royal Dublin Society from March 18-29, 2027, beginning the day after St. Patrick’s Day. The 48th annual edition will be the fifth held at the venue since the festival relocated there in 2022.

The festival’s organizers announced the dates Oct. 15 and said the schedule will feature three seven-figure guarantees: €2.5 million for the €1,150 Main Event, plus €1 million each for the €250 Mini Irish Open and €1,150 LuxonPay Mystery Bounty.

The Main Event runs March 21-29 and has six starting flights scheduled from March 21-26. Its €2.5 million guarantee matches the 2026 Main Event’s stated guarantee, though last year’s tournament ultimately drew 5,003 entries and produced a €4.85 million prize pool.

The Mini Irish Open opens the festival on March 18. It has 15 starting flights through March 28, allows unlimited re-entries and concludes March 29.

The LuxonPay Mystery Bounty also begins March 18, with five opening flights before it finishes March 22. The festival’s schedule also lists daily events in roughly the €250 to €500 range, while the highest listed buy-in is €5,000 for no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha tournaments. At the other end of the schedule, the €115 Flip and Go is the lowest-priced open event listed.

Players looking beyond hold’em and PLO will find 2-7 triple draw, HORSE, 8-Game, Sviten Special, PLO 4/5/6 and Big O on the mixed-game schedule. The programme also includes Seniors and Super-Seniors events, a Ladies High Roller Championship, and Irish Open Deaf Championships in both PLO and no-limit hold’em.

The March timing places the opening immediately after the March 17 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Paul O’Reilly called the parade “the perfect opening ceremony” and said players would get 13 days of celebration when the holiday is included.

The 2026 Dublin festival set a substantial recent benchmark, with 89 tournaments, more than 32,000 entries and an overall prize pool above €15.5 million. Narcis Nedelcu won the Main Event for about €336,000 after a five-way chop.

The event is run by O’Reilly and JP McCann with PokerStars and Paddy Power. Cedric Billot said PokerStars will continue the collaboration for a fifth consecutive year in 2027.

The Irish Poker Open began as a five-card stud tournament in April 1980, before its Main Event switched to no-limit hold’em for its second running in 1981.

ACR Poker’s three Halloween Mystery PKO tournaments had drawn 3,215 entries and produced 367 Day 2 qualifiers as of the morning of Oct. 20. The multi-flight events carry a combined $650,000 in guarantees, and daily Day 1s continue through Nov. 1.

The entry figure includes repeat participation, while the qualifier total does not represent unique players across all three tournaments. Players can enter more than one starting flight and combine any qualifying chip stacks for Day 2.

As we reported Oct. 18, ACR Poker launched the Halloween slate with buy-ins of $5.50, $33 and $109. The $5.50 event has supplied the largest share of early traffic, drawing 2,057 entries and sending 248 stacks through, against a $50,000 guarantee.

The $33 tournament has recorded 536 entries and 44 qualifiers, with $100,000 guaranteed. The $109 edition, which accounts for $500,000 of the total guarantees, had 622 entries and 75 players through to Day 2.

There are no bounty payments during Day 1. All three events move into their bounty phase on Nov. 1, and every survivor begins that stage with a $0 accumulated Progressive Bounty, regardless of their stack size or how many flights they played.

The Mystery PKO format combines hidden Mystery Bounties with visible Progressive Bounties and is exclusive to the Winning Poker Network. When a Day 2 knockout reveals a mystery prize, half is paid to the player making the elimination and half is added to that player’s visible bounty.

A player who eliminates an opponent carrying an accumulated Progressive Bounty receives the same 50-50 treatment on that amount. That leaves part of earlier prizes in play through later eliminations, while the visible bounty can grow beyond the original hidden prize.

The three tournaments enter Day 2 on Sunday, Nov. 1, when the mystery-bounty and progressive-knockout action begins.

ACR Poker is adding Turbo Tuesday, a weekly $630 TurboTues MB PKO on the Winning Poker Network that guarantees $500,000 and carries a $50,000 top mystery bounty. The first Day 1 flight runs Wednesday, Oct. 21, while the weekly tournament cycle formally begins Tuesday, Oct. 27.

The schedule runs from Wednesday through Tuesday, with Day 1 flights feeding into a Tuesday Day 2 at 1:30 p.m. ET. PokerListings reported that players can enter any number of flights and accumulate a stack for Day 2, giving them multiple chances to qualify during the week.

ACR Poker is offering $63 and $66 satellites throughout the week for the Turbo Tuesday flights. Those qualifiers guarantee between two and five tournament tickets.

Turbo Tuesday uses a Mystery PKO format, combining random mystery-bounty rewards with progressive knockout bounties. At launch, it is the only weekly multi-flight Mystery PKO running in the promotion.

The company introduced Daily Mystery Bounty events in August 2025, where players who eliminate opponents after reaching the money receive a chest revealing a mystery award instead of a fixed bounty. The top bounty in those daily events is set at 10% of the total prize pool.

ACR Poker, formerly Americas Cardroom, joined the Winning Poker Network in 2011.

Deltin will stage the third IMMORTALS poker cash festival at its Deltin Royale floating casino in Goa from Oct. 22-28. The seven-day event carries a superhero theme, “The Power is in Your Hands,” and offers more than ₹75 lakh in prizes and giveaways for more than 150 winners.

The festival is built around the idea that poker players’ skill, instinct and nerve are their superpowers. In its announcement carried by Business Standard, Deltin said the schedule will include Texas Hold’em, PLO and ROE cash games, with Platinum, Gold and Silver leaderboard categories.

The main event is a ₹20 lakh Mystery Bounty Freeroll on Oct. 28. Its value is split evenly between a ₹10 lakh prize pool and ₹10 lakh in mystery bounties.

Players who perform consistently across the week can compete on the three-tier Immortal’s Board, which also uses Platinum, Gold and Silver divisions. Deltin will additionally award bonus rewards for Royal Flushes, Straight Flushes and Quads.

Daily lucky draws run from Oct. 23-27, with iPhones, WHOOP fitness bands and AirPods among the prizes. A Mega Lucky Draw on the final day includes a MacBook Air, iPad Air, iPhone and other prizes.

IMMORTALS has previously used a medieval-warrior theme for its debut and a futuristic, AI-inspired concept for its second season. The inaugural festival ran at Deltin Royale from Aug. 22 to Sept. 5, 2024, with 15 days of poker events, including tournaments, freerolls, cash games and leaderboard showdowns, according to EventFAQs.

That first edition offered ₹2.5 crore in prizes and giveaways and concluded by recognizing its top 50 leaderboard performers. Delta Corp Ltd., which owns Deltin, operates casinos and hotels in Goa and Daman.

Infinity Poker will launch its new Asia-facing tournament circuit at Paradise City in Incheon, South Korea, with a 10-day festival scheduled for March 5-14, 2027. The debut series has 114 tournaments and ₩800 million, about $600,000, in guaranteed prize pools.

The new UAE-based brand will run the stop with Pokerfors. Its published schedule confirms play is scheduled on every day of the festival, which will be held at Paradise City, home to a casino described by the venue as Korea’s largest for foreign visitors only.

The ₩1.5 million Main Event offers a ₩600 million guarantee. The ₩450,000 Mini Main has a ₩150 million guarantee, while the first Somuchpoker Championship opens the festival on March 5 and runs through March 6, with a ₩600,000 buy-in and ₩50 million guaranteed.

The Mini Main is built around 11 starting flights and same-day payouts on each Day 1. The top 15% of the Mini Main will receive at least twice their buy-in, while the top 5% advance to Day 2. Players can enter more than one starting flight and take their best stack forward.

Beyond hold’em, the schedule includes Omaha, mixed games and a ₩5 million Super High Roller. Infinity Poker has also outlined online Road to Infinity satellites, although it has yet to release their locations or other operational details.

Rajvi Makol, Infinity Poker’s founder and CEO, said the venture wants to build “more than a tournament series,” describing its goal as a community and platform for players worldwide. Savya Ansh and Anandita Anand are also co-founders, and the company says its team combines backgrounds in competitive poker, filmmaking, entrepreneurship, luxury hospitality and marketing.

Incheon is intended as the first of three Asian Infinity Poker festivals in 2027. Poker.org reported that a second stop is planned for August, while Somuchpoker said the two remaining destinations and dates had not been announced. Somuchpoker is the festival’s official media partner, with Luxon Pay and Master of the Mindset also listed among its partnerships.

All In For Mental Health, a charity poker tournament benefiting the Inspiring Children Foundation, takes place Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Encore Poker Room in Las Vegas. The $500 buy-in event offers $200 rebuys and $100 add-ons, with in-person registration and a cocktail hour beginning at 6 p.m. local time before cards go in the air at 7 p.m.

Ray Lewis, Mike Majlak, Deryk Engelland, Jonathan Little and Princess Love are slated to attend, according to PokerNews. Coco Love, Stitched, Wynn and the World Poker Tour are sponsoring the event.

The winner can choose either a $10,400 seat in the WPT World Championship or $10,000 in cash. The other nine final-table players will receive prizes including Wynn Tower Suites stays, dinners at SW Steakhouse and Sinatra, and bottle packages at XS.

There are separate incentives tied to the tournament format. The player who makes the most rebuys receives a two-night stay in a Wynn Las Vegas Resort room, dinner for two at Sinatra and two tickets to Awakening. The chip leader when registration closes receives an XS Nightclub VIP bottle package for up to six people.

Proceeds are earmarked for the Las Vegas-based Inspiring Children Foundation, which has worked for more than 25 years with young people facing anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and other serious challenges. Its programs combine mental-health support with education, leadership development, nutrition, athletics and community connections.

The foundation serves at-risk youth ages 3 to 20 and reaches about 500 participants annually, according to the USTA. Based at Lorenzi Park, it provides free tennis alongside tutoring, SAT preparation, a book club and educational breakfasts. Its work has helped 115 students receive academic and athletic college scholarships, including at Yale, Harvard, Vanderbilt and Villanova University.

Foundation CEO Trent Alenik entered the organization as one of its earliest students at age 14, earned a tennis scholarship to Villanova and later returned to Las Vegas, progressing from volunteer to manager, executive director and CEO. He said poker’s emphasis on resilience, discipline and decision-making under pressure reflects skills the foundation seeks to develop in young people.

Marty Hennessy said the tournament is intended to show young people that their community believes in them and that a brighter future is possible.

New Jersey’s internet gaming win reached $274.8 million in September, up 13.0% from $243.1 million a year earlier, according to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement. The result made iGaming the state’s largest gaming-revenue segment for the month, ahead of the nine casino hotels’ $227.8 million in in-person casino win, which fell 1.3% year over year.

The state’s wider online market growth did not carry through to two poker-associated brand totals. USPoker reported that revenue under the partypoker brand fell 47.5% to about $919,000, from about $1.75 million in September 2025. WSOP-branded revenue slipped 1.4% to about $953,000.

Those operator-table totals should not be read as standalone poker revenue. They include all internet gaming revenue recorded under each brand, including casino games, so they cannot establish the precise monthly performance of either poker site.

September was New Jersey’s third-highest month for internet gaming win, behind July’s roughly $276.9 million and May’s roughly $276.3 million. Through the first nine months of the year, iGaming win totaled $2.40 billion, a 13.2% increase from the comparable 2025 period.

The latest brand results come after a softer August for the state’s separately reported peer-to-peer poker category, which generated about $2.56 million, down 3.2% from a year earlier. As we reported in September, that August decline left New Jersey peer-to-peer poker win down 2.8% through the first eight months of 2026, at about $20.1 million.

PokerStars does not have a directly comparable entry in September’s operator table. It recorded about $1.08 million under its former standalone listing in September 2025, but the PokerStars NJ site closed on April 1 and returned the same day as PokerStars on FanDuel. The new platform uses a shared player pool across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Pokerfuse estimated that PokerStars on FanDuel generated $2.6 million across those three states in August, up 14% year over year. That contrasted with an estimated 2% decline for the regulated US online poker market overall during the month, including year-over-year declines of 10% for WSOP Online and 16% for BetMGM Poker.

New Jersey’s September total gaming revenue across casinos, racetracks and their partners was $579.6 million, up 2.8% year over year, while total gross-revenue taxes reached $82.7 million for the month.

Asian Poker Tour Online has completed eight trophy events with cumulative prize pools of about $5.7 million, up 6.5% from the equivalent point in 2025. Turnout is also 2.5% ahead year over year, and six of the eight finished events have set new benchmarks.

The Oct. 11-Nov. 2 festival carries $40 million in guarantees across 20 trophy events, a 60% increase on the prior edition. Buy-ins range from $56 to $5,000, while the Main Event has a $5 million guarantee.

The first four events had already brought in 8,682 entries and roughly $2.1 million in prize money, increases of 2.6% and 5.5%, respectively, over the opening stage of the 2025 series. Event #1 drew 4,226 entries and generated nearly $420,000, more than 17% above its 2025 figures, while Event #2’s 246-entry, $1.2 million result was nearly 10% higher in both entries and prize pool.

Georgia’s PostBloom won Event #1 after a heads-up deal with TheGrinder19, with both players receiving more than $20,000. Avdi_2000 took Event #2’s $205,727 first prize by defeating Viacheslav Buldygin heads-up.

The Thailand National Cup 6-Max, Event #3, drew 3,488 entries and generated a $191,212 prize pool, with both figures below the previous year’s edition. China’s Ocean Wave beat Slovakia’s LostDollarex for the $22,311 top prize. Event #4, the new Single Day High Roller-Bounty Freezeout, attracted 722 entries and produced a $361,000 prize pool; Flyby received more than $50,000 in prizes and bounties after a heads-up deal with BIROSKA.

Poker.org’s latest recap covered four further trophy winners. Event #5, the Taiwan National Cup-Bounty, introduced a bounty format to APTO for the first time. It drew 2,904 entries and generated $293,454, clearing its guarantee and surpassing the 2025 prize pool by 26.9%. China’s MoneyMaker_1999 defeated Taiwan’s xiaomoobao heads-up.

The Turbo-Ultra Stack followed with a tournament-record 3,475 entries, 28.3% more than in 2025, and a $319,700 prize pool above guarantee. Slovenia’s Renato Pozzetto beat Brazil’s Andre Figueiredo after seven hours of play.

Event #7, the $1,050 APT Online High Roller, attracted 842 entries, a 32.39% increase on the prior year’s field, and awarded an $842,000 prize pool. Austria’s milka29 won the Rose Gold APTO High Roller Mega Lion trophy by defeating Cambodia’s 3k-szy2sy heads-up.

Mystery Bounty Hunter, Event #8, brought the largest field of the latest four events with 9,321 entries. It was one of the few events not to establish a new turnout record, but its $2.1 million prize pool beat the $2 million guarantee and was 12.1% above 2025. The UAE’s Valen_tina earned $156,442 for first place plus $200,410 in mystery bounties, taking the total payout above $350,000.

Each trophy-event winner receives a seat in the APT Championship Main Event Freezeout in Taipei, Taiwan, scheduled for Nov. 23-27. The online festival’s $5 million guaranteed Main Event and $1 million guaranteed Super High Roller are set to run simultaneously on Nov. 1.

KKPoker has brought back its HalloWIN promotion, putting more than $250,000 in guaranteed prizes across multi-table tournaments running through Oct. 31. The schedule includes PKOs, PLO events, freezeouts and two free-entry tournaments.

The festival’s largest individual prize pool is the $50,000-guaranteed HalloWIN PKO on Oct. 31. It costs $50 to enter and is listed to begin at 13:00 GMT.

Players can also enter $500 Free Treat freerolls on Oct. 17 and Oct. 23. Other themed events include Skeleton, Ghost, Vampire and Zombie tournaments: the $8,000 Skeleton PKO has a $5 buy-in, while the Ghost PKO, Bat Classic and Zombie PKO each cost $30. Vampire PLO PKOs carry guarantees of $1,000 to $2,000.

Alongside the tournament slate, Candy Missions run from 11:00 GMT on Oct. 17 until 11:00 GMT on Oct. 31. The main Hole Catch Match Mission asks players to complete specified hole-card combinations at FLASH NLH tables with blinds of at least $0.01/$0.02.

Completing that mission earns Lucky Wheels, which can award cash, MTT tickets or more Candies. There is also a Card-Match Mission and daily missions, while top performers in HalloWIN MTTs receive bonus Candies.

Ten Candies can be exchanged for one Lucky Draw entry, with bonus cash prizes worth up to $1,000 available. PokerStrategy.com noted a timing discrepancy for the $50,000 PKO: supplied tournament information lists 13:00 GMT, while separate event information cites 15:00 CET, so players should check the KKPoker client before registering.

The HalloWIN schedule runs from Oct. 16 through Oct. 31.

Jeremy Ausmus won the $15,700 no-limit hold’em Event #7 at the 2026 Poker Masters, beating Aram Oganyan heads-up for $278,400 and his 10th PokerGO Tour title. The victory came from a 58-entry field at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas that generated an $870,000 prize pool.

Oganyan earned $174,000 as runner-up. Ausmus began the five-handed final day third in chips, behind Oganyan and Adrian Mateos, according to PokerNews, but eliminated all four of his final opponents himself.

Ausmus knocked out Cherish Andrews in fifth with pocket nines against ace-queen, then sent Mateos out in fourth and Joe McKeehen out in third. McKeehen’s pocket nines could not improve against Ausmus’ pocket kings, leaving Ausmus to face Oganyan.

A decisive heads-up hand saw Ausmus call Oganyan’s river shove with a straight against trip fours, giving him a commanding lead. He sealed the title when queen-seven held against Oganyan’s jack-five.

Daniel Negreanu finished seventh for $34,800, and Joey Weissman placed sixth for $47,850. Andrews collected $65,250, Mateos earned $87,000 and McKeehen took home $121,800. Brock Wilson was the Event #7 money bubble in 10th place after Mateos eliminated him.

The win gave Ausmus 223 PokerGO Tour points and moved him to fifth in the Purple Jacket race with 294 points. Mateos remained in front after his fourth-place finish, while Weissman, Nick Palma and Myles Mullaly also remained ahead of Ausmus and each cashed in Event #7. As we reported Oct. 17, Mateos had taken the Purple Jacket lead by winning Event #5.

Ausmus had recorded three cashes and two final tables through the series’ first seven events. The 47-year-old’s career earnings also moved beyond $31 million, while his 10 PGT titles put him into the tour’s double-digit title club. Sam Soverel leads that group with 17 titles.

Three Poker Masters events remained after Event #7, with buy-ins of $15,700, $26,000 and $51,000. The $51,000 series finale is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 23.

Triton Poker has scheduled a three-stage live satellite on Nov. 4 that guarantees 10 seats in the $8,000 Triton ONE North Cyprus Main Event. The one-day qualifier takes place in the poker room at Merit Casino & Resort, immediately before the North Cyprus festival begins.

Unlike the existing online routes, every stage will be played at the venue. The live satellite is designed to feed directly into Main Event Day 1a, with players able to advance through earlier stages or buy into the final qualifier.

Stage 1 begins at 2 p.m. as a freeroll. Players can make $30 re-entries and take an optional add-on during the first six 10-minute levels, while 20 Stage 2 seats are guaranteed.

Stage 2 starts at 4:30 p.m. and costs $200, with unlimited re-entries allowed. Entrants receive 10,000 chips, and any player reaching 70,000 chips advances to the final; 10 final-stage places are guaranteed.

Players who do not qualify through Stage 2 can enter the final for $1,300. The final begins with 100,000 chips, and players who build that stack to 700,000 receive one of the 10 guaranteed $8,000 Main Event seats.

The Triton ONE North Cyprus festival runs from Nov. 5-15 and is scheduled to include 15 events. It is the final stop of the 2026 Triton Poker Series season and Triton ONE’s first festival on European soil.

The schedule opens with the $3,000 QQPK Genesis tournament, which runs Nov. 5-7. Poker.org lists the $8,000 Main Event as running Nov. 10-14, while an earlier PokerNews report listed its end date as Nov. 15.

Triton ONE was created for mid-stakes players who do not want to enter the brand’s higher-buy-in games. Its first two festivals were held in Jeju, South Korea: the September 2025 Main Event drew 1,046 entries, while the March edition attracted 1,230.

Online qualification has also been available through iPoker, Triton’s official satellite partner. Its route offered 20 €9,000 Main Event packages, including the $8,000 buy-in and accommodation, with a ladder beginning at a €0.01 Centroll and running through Oct. 18.

CoinPoker has made its $215 CoinMillion a permanent weekly Sunday tournament with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, beginning with the Oct. 18 edition won by Kgbseven. The event now runs over two days, starting Sunday at 16:30 UTC and bringing surviving players back on Monday to decide the title.

The move follows a shorter weekly run during the Global Online Poker Championship. As we reported in August, CoinPoker had first made CoinMillion a permanent monthly tournament after its opening two editions drew 9,062 combined entries.

CoinPoker’s tournament page now calls CoinMillion its flagship weekly event. Players can enter directly for $215 or pursue lower-cost qualification through freerolls and satellites, with routes listed from $0.30 and a $5.50 satellite buy-in. Each champion receives both a physical trophy and a digital one in the site’s Trophy Cabinet.

Kgbseven won the first event on the new schedule from 4,891 entries, collecting $120,500. The player used three entries, spending $645 in total, making the payout more than 186 times that outlay.

The win was Kgbseven’s first recorded CoinPoker cash since the platform’s major update in March and made the player the eighth CoinMillion champion. The $120,500 score ranks fourth among the tournament’s first-place payouts, behind the $126,500 record set by inaugural champion DaniC1994, who beat 4,278 entries on May 10.

At heads-up, Kgbseven held roughly a 2-to-1 chip lead over whalefish and proposed a deal. CardPlayer reported that whalefish declined, so play continued for the full advertised payouts; Kgbseven’s king-five beat whalefish’s ace-ten in the final hand. Whalefish received $76,900 for second after re-entering the tournament.

Dosesmimosas placed third for $55,700 from a single $215 entry. Like Kgbseven, Dosesmimosas had no recorded CoinPoker winnings before this final table, meaning both players logged their first recorded platform earnings in the same event.

The Oct. 18 field was below the 5,404 entries recorded for the Sept. 27 GOPC CoinMillion, but it still delivered another $1 million-guaranteed tournament under the new weekly format. PokerStrategy linked the scheduling upgrade to a traffic boost after CoinPoker’s The One surpassed its $5 million guarantee.

The next CoinMillion is set for Sunday, Oct. 25.

Moldova’s User1912 won 888’s $109 PokerNews Mystery Opening Event on Oct. 19, taking $7,614 including bounties after recovering from an early final-table setback. The two-day tournament drew 730 entries and carried an $80,000 guarantee.

The final eight players were set at the end of Day 1, with Lurich28 holding 91 big blinds, nearly double Denmark’s otteotteotte on 48 big blinds. User1912 soon fell below 15 big blinds, but fought back to reach heads-up play. During the opening levels, User1912’s pocket sixes lost to TheHueyLewis’s pocket queens.

Lurich28 began the duel with a 70-big-blind stack to User1912’s 21.3. In a key hand, User1912’s ace-king initially trailed Lurich28’s queen-jack suited: kings on both the turn and river left the stacks almost level.

The lead changed hands several times before Lurich28 three-bet all-in for more than 36 big blinds holding ace-six against User1912’s ace-king. User1912 ultimately built a nine-to-one advantage, then called Lurich28’s final shove of just over seven big blinds with pocket deuces. The deuces held on a ten-high board to end the tournament.

The Mystery Opening Event is the second-largest guaranteed tournament on the 40-event PokerNews Online Championship schedule, behind the $250 buy-in, $250,000-guaranteed Multi-Flight Mystery Bounty Main Event. The series, which offers more than $780,000 in guarantees across mystery bounty, progressive knockout and turbo events, runs on 888 through Oct. 27.

Justin Vaysman turned 20,000 chips, roughly one-quarter of a big blind, into the Poker Masters Event #6 title after a remarkable five-handed comeback. The victory in the listed $10,500 no-limit hold’em event paid $192,000 and delivered his first PokerGO Tour title.

Vaysman had been left with the tiny stack with five players remaining, but won three consecutive all-ins to climb to 400,000 chips, or about five big blinds. He then won a three-way all-in with ace-nine, making a straight to triple to 2.05 million and help set up Brandon Wilson’s fourth-place elimination.

The 64-entry tournament created a $640,000 prize pool and paid its top 10 finishers. Victoria Livschitz had earlier eliminated Sam Laskowitz in seventh and Joey Weissman in sixth before Vaysman’s recovery gathered pace.

Sean Winter knocked out Tony Gregg in fifth, Wilson in fourth and Livschitz in third, then began heads-up play holding about a three-to-one lead. PokerNews and Poker.org put the stacks at roughly 60 or 61 big blinds for Winter against Vaysman’s 19.

Vaysman doubled with ace-seven against Winter’s queen-six suited, then made a river call with second pair to take the lead. In the final hand, Winter check-raised a ten-nine-seven flop and shoved 2.975 million on the king of hearts turn. Vaysman called and improved to a full house when the ten of hearts arrived on the river, beating Winter’s jack-three.

Winter finished second. CardPlayer listed his payout at $124,800, while PokerNews reported $124,000. Livschitz earned $86,400 for third, Wilson received $64,000 for fourth and Gregg collected $48,000 for fifth.

Speaking after the win, Vaysman said it might be his biggest victory because he had not previously had a major outright live result. He said that, after falling to his last chip, winning a couple of pots and getting fortunate made the situation feel like “freerolling.”

The title was Vaysman’s sixth final table of the year and his second cash of the Poker Masters, following a sixth-place finish in the kickoff event. It moved him to fifth in the Purple Jacket race on 231 points, including 192 from Event #6, while he received 360 Card Player Player of the Year points.

The Horsham, Pennsylvania, resident is a three-time bracelet winner with more than $2 million in career tournament earnings. The $192,000 prize was his third-largest score, behind his $350,000 payout for 25th in the 2024 WSOP Main Event and a $257,400 WSOP Online six-max victory.

Winter’s runner-up finish was his first cash of the series and moved him to 14th in its rankings. He also took over first in the PokerGO Tour seasonal standings with 1,975 points across 16 cashes. Vaysman said he planned to play the remaining Poker Masters events as he pursued the Purple Jacket.

Umut Ozturk won the 2026 MSPT Spade Poker Championship Main Event at FireKeepers Casino in Battle Creek, Michigan, taking $280,290 after an even heads-up deal with Gregory Wiggins. The result gave Ozturk his third MSPT Main Event title and his second such win of the year.

The $1 million-guaranteed tournament drew 2,442 entries and generated a $2.37 million prize pool, paying 266 players. The series returned to FireKeepers for its second Spade Poker Championship from Oct. 13-18.

Ozturk and Wiggins made the deal after heads-up play began with nearly even chip stacks, though Wiggins was slightly behind. Wiggins also collected $280,290 as runner-up. Gian Bencivenga finished third for $164,811, Daniel Sepiol placed fourth for $123,028 and Derek Gregory took fifth for $96,798.

The final day began with all 266 remaining players already in the money. Ozturk was one of four players to advance with two bags and started the day with a top-20 stack. His pocket aces were cracked early, but he recovered to claim the title.

The victory was the largest score of Ozturk’s career and moved him atop the MSPT’s career-earnings list with about $1.34 million on the tour, passing Josh Reichard’s previous mark of about $1.2 million. It was Ozturk’s 19th MSPT final table and 75th cash, while his overall live tournament earnings rose above $1.6 million.

Ozturk dedicated the win to his late mother. He said she was diagnosed with terminal cancer when he last visited FireKeepers in May, prompting him to return home, and that she died a couple of months later. “Even though she wasn’t here with me physically, I felt her the entire weekend, so this one is dedicated to my mother,” he said.

The FireKeepers result followed Ozturk’s Ohio Poker State Championship victory at JACK Cleveland in February, his second MSPT title at the time. That event drew 801 runners for a $775,470 prize pool. Ozturk, the MSPT Player of the Year in 2023 and 2024, also won a $400 side event at the MSPT Wisconsin Poker State Championship in late September.

The FireKeepers win earned Ozturk 1,080 Card Player Player of the Year points and was his third qualifying score of 2026, all victories. MSPT’s Season 17 continues at Grand Falls Casino in Larchwood, Iowa, from Oct. 28 through Nov. 1.

WPT Global has opened an Asia-only leaderboard race that will award 30 packages for WPT Prime Taiwan, giving eligible online players a route into the January 2027 festival in Taipei. The Asia MTT Super Package Leaderboard runs from Oct. 19 through Dec. 20 and is restricted to accounts registered in Asia.

Each of the 30 prizes is valued at $1,600. It includes a $1,100 entry to the WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event and $500 credited to the winner’s WPT Global account for travel and accommodation.

The promotion sits alongside nine weekly Asia MTT leaderboards, according to PokerNews. Each week awards $10,000 in WPT Prime Taiwan satellite tickets: the top 91 finishers receive a $110 ticket for an online qualifier, while the top 100 also collect points toward the larger Super Package Leaderboard.

Players accumulate points through eligible WPT Global tournaments. WPT Global’s promotion page says weekly rankings are affected by Early Bird and Collected Prize points, and that the weekly contest is open to both new and existing customers in Asia.

Package winners, along with players who secure a $1,100 seat through WPT Global satellites, qualify for Black Card benefits. WPT Global advertises $20,000 in additional Black Card benefits for satellite winners. PokerNews lists $17,500 in Last Longer prizes, bubble protection and an iPhone reward for eligible players who finish in the top 18 of the Main Event among the perks.

The live festival runs Jan. 2-11 at CTP’s Asia Poker Arena in Taipei’s Zhongshan District. Its WPT Prime Taiwan Championship is scheduled for Jan. 7-11, carrying a TWD 35,000, or about $1,100, buy-in and a TWD 30 million, or about $1 million, guarantee.

WPT Global is sponsoring the festival, which is presented by PokerTalk. WPT Global has also said it will offer online satellites at multiple buy-in levels, including lower-cost qualifiers capable of awarding live packages.

The event returns after its 2024 Championship drew 1,666 entries, a WPT Prime Championship record outside Las Vegas at the time. Hyundong Lee won the 2025 WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event from a 1,470-player field, earning the equivalent of about $213,000 and a $10,400 WPT World Championship seat.

Jesse Lonis won his third World Series of Poker bracelet in a $1,000 online Mystery Bounty event, outlasting 371 entries and defeating “kazuomatsui” heads-up. The 31-year-old earned $59,579 in total, combining a $33,688 first-place prize with $25,891 in bounties.

Lonis played the tournament under the screen name “Dangerous22” and entered only once. Card Player reported that his bounty haul included a $14,000 envelope, the second-largest mystery bounty available from the prize pool.

Lonis announced the result on social media Oct. 19, writing: “Won my 3rd WSOP Bracelet last night!” It was his first bracelet victory since 2023, when he won a $50,000 pot-limit Omaha high roller for $2.3 million, still the second-largest tournament cash of his career.

His first bracelet came in 2022, in a $1,000 online six-max no-limit hold’em event. The New York native, now based in Las Vegas, has amassed more than $35 million in career earnings.

The bracelet adds another online result to Lonis’ strong year, following his $153,000 victory in CoinPoker’s GOPC High Roller in August, as we reported at the time. “Kazuomatsui,” meanwhile, had also finished sixth in the earlier WSOP Online event won by Shannon Shorr for his fourth bracelet.

WSOP Online allows players in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania to compete for official gold bracelets from home.

SolPoker.com has announced a browser-based crypto poker platform that promises zero rake, no KYC for normal use and cryptographically verifiable card dealing. The service says it operates around the clock and supports instant cryptocurrency cashouts of up to $750,000 in a 24-hour period.

In its Oct. 19 announcement, SolPoker said it replaces pot rake with advertising and sponsorship revenue. That model means no fee is deducted from pots.

The platform’s central technical claim is that its deck is committed before cards are dealt and can be checked on-chain. Players can independently examine that commitment and verify the dealing process, rather than using blockchain solely to move funds into and out of poker games.

SolPoker said the room requires neither a download nor a desktop client, running directly in a web browser. It also said normal use does not require a know-your-customer process or personal information, while payments stay within the cryptocurrency ecosystem rather than conventional bank and card-processing systems.

SolPoker’s arrival echoes PlayBlind’s Sept. 25 zero-rake, no-KYC crypto poker launch, as we covered at the time, though the two announcements are from separate platforms. PlayBlind also advertised browser play, sponsor-backed revenue and daily crypto withdrawals up to $750,000, and described encrypted hole cards and zero-knowledge technology.

Michel Molenaar captured his second KPC Poker October Series trophy in three days on Sunday, winning Event #57, the $25,000 Single Day Super High Roller, for $140,000 at LES A Casino in Jeju, South Korea.

The one-day event drew 10 entries and produced a $234,000 prize pool, with only two players paid. Mehdi Chaoui collected $94,000 as runner-up, while Vladas Tamasauskas finished third on the money bubble.

Molenaar began heads-up play with 2.1 million chips to Chaoui’s 895,000, a lead of more than 2:1. Chaoui did not recover from that deficit.

The final hand saw Molenaar move all in with pocket fours and Chaoui call with ace-deuce. The board ran 7♦ J♣ 3♠ 4♥ 3♦, giving Molenaar a set on the turn before the river paired the board to make his full house and secure the title.

The win followed Molenaar’s victory in Event #41, the $15,000 King’s Single Day High Roller Turbo, on Oct. 15. That tournament attracted 34 entries for a $477,400 prize pool, and Molenaar beat Nevan Chang heads-up to earn $168,400.

Molenaar had also opened his Jeju run with a second-place finish in the $5,000 KPC King’s Debut, worth $150,000. He praised the service and staff at the stop, saying players were treated like VIPs rather than “customer number 700,” and said strong Chinese player participation helped create attractive prize pools and a good table atmosphere.

The 2026 KPC Poker Series runs through Oct. 21 at Les A in Jeju, with organizers having announced a KRW 3.1 billion guaranteed prize pool for the festival.

PokerStars and GGPoker were not among the 11 entities that won the right to apply for New Zealand’s first regulated online casino licences. That means neither operator currently appears to hold the auction rights needed for a direct application, although the final brands that will operate in the market have not yet been decided.

The auction allocated application rights for up to 15 licences, rather than granting licences outright. It drew 32 bidders over 10 ascending-clock rounds, ending at NZ$15 million per licence, or about US$8.4 million. The process ran from Sept. 29 through Oct. 12.

The 11 selected entities include Baytree Interactive, which can apply for three licences, and Playvia Gaming (NZ) and Rock Swift Group, which each secured two. Christchurch Online NZ, One Casino, Rush Entertainment, Skill On Net, two SkyCity NZ Online entities, Stake New Zealand and TAB New Zealand each secured rights for one licence.

PokerStars and GGPoker could still potentially find a route into the country through a commercial deal with a successful bidder. A local licence holder could operate an approved brand while using technology and player liquidity supplied by an international poker network, but no GGPoker partnership with a New Zealand bidder has been announced.

That possibility remains uncertain because the Department of Internal Affairs has not confirmed how internationally shared poker liquidity would work under the new regime. Liquidity is particularly important in poker, where a larger player pool supports more cash tables, a wider choice of stakes and larger tournament fields. Stake is the only successful bidder whose existing brand already includes peer-to-peer poker.

The new system covers poker as part of online casino licensing, so offshore poker sites cannot assume peer-to-peer games receive different treatment from other online gambling products. From Dec. 1, operators that have not submitted a licence application must stop offering online casino gambling in New Zealand. Applicants may continue operating while their applications are assessed, but cannot advertise; operators whose applications are rejected must leave the market.

An auction win is only the first stage. Each selected company must submit a full application and business plan, including plans for consumer protection, advertising, compliance and gambling-harm prevention. The Department of Internal Affairs will then decide whether applicants are suitable and able to meet the rules.

The regulator has said the framework is meant to improve consumer protection, harm minimisation and tax compliance, rather than increase gambling. A licence covers one approved brand, may initially run for up to three years and can potentially be renewed for another five years; no operator can receive more than three licences.

The identity of the eventual licensed brands will be published only after licences are granted, on the Department of Internal Affairs public register. The fully licensed system is expected to begin operating during 2027, with licences expected from early in the year.

GGPoker will begin enforcing its ban on third-party poker tools on Dec. 1, pairing the prohibition with an in-client system that continuously scans for unauthorized software. Players whose programs are detected will receive an immediate warning and be told to close the application.

As we reported Oct. 16, GGPoker had already announced the broader prohibition after a recent security incident. PokerStrategy.com reported that the new warning system activates alongside the ban, making Dec. 1 the point at which the policy gains an automated enforcement layer.

Players who do not respond promptly to a warning could face account restrictions, from temporary suspensions to permanent bans. Tool developers have also been told they must remove compatibility with the GG network entirely if they want their products taken off the warning list.

GGPoker is also rolling out built-in options aimed at players who previously relied on table-management software to handle high volume. The native multitabling tools include table swapping, layout locking and focus management.

The company’s new approach does not treat every desktop utility as prohibited. Operating-system-level window-management programs including PowerToys and Rectangle may still be used to arrange poker tables.

The ban marks a change from GGPoker’s earlier policy, which allowed some third-party applications that did not affect gameplay. The operator said such software can access game data, interact with tables or automate actions, while also creating information-security risks that it cannot control.

The wider security update also added optional protections within the client and expanded integrity monitoring. Those measures include tools intended to block screen capture and flag suspicious connections, plus a win-rate anomaly system that compares decisions with opponents’ actual hole cards to identify play that would be implausibly accurate in a fair game.

Adrian Mateos won Event #5 of the 2026 Poker Masters, beating Nick Schulman heads-up in the $10,500 no-limit hold’em tournament at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. Mateos collected $229,500 and moved into first place in the Purple Jacket standings with 381 points.

The tournament drew 85 entries, the biggest field of the series to that point, and created an $850,000 prize pool. Thirteen players were paid, while Joe McKeehen finished 14th to bubble the money.

Mateos started the seven-player final day with the chip lead. He eliminated Jeremy Becker in third place, then began heads-up with Schulman holding more than a 4:1 advantage. The match lasted two hands, ending when Mateos’ pocket aces beat Schulman’s ten-nine of hearts.

Schulman earned $148,750 for second, while Becker took $106,250 in third. Robert French finished fourth for $76,500 after Schulman called his all-in with queen-nine and made a river nine against French’s ace-king. Martin Zamani, Keith Lehr and Matthew Wantman rounded out the final seven.

The win delivered 230 PGT points, which combined with the 151 Mateos earned for finishing second in Event #2. Mateos had finished runner-up to Nick Palma in that earlier tournament, as we reported, before bubbling Events #3 and #4.

That run of near misses continued after the title. Mateos later bubbled Event #6, meaning he had finished on the money bubble in four of the first six Poker Masters events, while placing first and second in the other two. In Event #6, Justin Vaysman’s pocket sevens held against Mateos’ ace-queen and Robert Chorlian’s ace-six in a double knockout.

Mateos said he tries to focus on the process and decisions he can control rather than short-term results. He said he had been playing for 11 or 12 hours on most days during the series and believed his 14 or 15 years as a professional had helped him develop the mindset to manage the swings.

The Event #5 result pushed Mateos’ recorded live tournament earnings beyond $70.5 million. He had earned $380,700 in the Poker Masters after five events.

The 10-event Poker Masters has buy-ins from $10,500 to $51,000. The overall Poker Masters winner receives the Purple Jacket and a $25,000 PGT Passport, with the series continuing through Oct. 23.

WSOP Super Circuit KINGS will bring an 88-tournament schedule and €5 million in total guarantees to King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, from Oct. 28 through Nov. 11. The slate includes satellites and events across no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, bounty formats and high rollers.

The €3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event carries a €2 million guarantee, starts Nov. 5 and concludes Nov. 11. Listed as Event #13 on the official schedule, it has three starting flights.

PokerNews’ published schedule puts ring-event buy-ins between €350 and €8,600. The lower end is the €350 King’s DreamMaker, which has a €300,000 guarantee, five opening flights and a Turbo flight. At the other end, Event #11 is the €8,600 GGMillion$ No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.

The festival opens Oct. 28 with a €500 No-Limit Hold’em Super Circuit Kick-Off, guaranteed for €100,000, and a €1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Bounty event with the same guarantee. A €1 million-guaranteed, €1,000 Mini Main Event follows on Oct. 29, offering five starting flights through Oct. 31 before Day 2 and the final day on Nov. 1 and 2.

The first week also includes Big O, Ultra Stack NLH, Monster Stack PLO and the King’s German Championship of Poker. The German championship gives players a chance to be named the 2026 Deutscher Poker Meister.

The €1,000 Mystery Bounty has three starting flights from Nov. 1 through Nov. 3 and a €500,000 guarantee. The high-roller lineup also includes €5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha and No-Limit Hold’em events, alongside the GGMillion$ tournament.

Late in the series, the €1,500 Super Circuit Championship offers a €500,000 guarantee and two starting flights. The closing schedule also features the King’s DreamMaker, plus PLO and bounty side events.

Players can qualify from €70 through a satellite to the Super Circuit Kick-Off. Most satellite buy-ins fall between €150 and €200, with qualifying routes available for the Mini Main Event, Mystery Bounty, Main Event and Super Circuit Championship.

King’s Casino, near the German border, has hosted numerous WSOP Circuit festivals and became the home of WSOP Europe in 2017. WSOP Europe moved to Prague this year, while King’s remained a primary sponsor of that series. As covered last month, the Rozvadov resort had already hosted its King’s Million European Poker Championship as part of its autumn schedule.

The 2026 BetRivers Poker Championship finished with 18,224 entries and about $624,000 in prize money, beating its advertised $600,000 guarantee by roughly $24,000. The online series ran Sept. 27 through Oct. 11 and comprised 100 tournaments: 50 distinct events each offered in Gold and Silver divisions.

Gold and Silver leaderboards also ran during the 15-day festival, awarding more than $15,000 in tournament-ticket prizes. PokerNews and SCCG Management both reported the entry and prize-pool totals, along with 13 players who won multiple tournaments.

The published recaps differ on one point. SCCG Management listed luckyluckyboy, Bswo and jbl7 as the three players to win three titles each, while PokerNews counted Dan “DrDadPoker” Schill as a fourth three-time winner. SCCG’s event results instead list Schill as a two-time winner, in the $100 PLO Championship for $2,496 and the $100 Deepstack Turbo for $2,120.

luckyluckyboy’s three wins included the $500 High Roller Championship for $8,500, alongside victories in the $200 8-Max Championship and $100 Monsterstack Hyper. Bswo won the $50 Monsterstack, $5 Classic and $100 Benjamin. jbl7 took down the $200 Deepstack 6-Max, $100 Deepstack Turbo PLO and $200 Deepstack.

The remaining multiple-title winners named by SCCG were Gregg929, LionsFan68, Trxcky99, xnbomb, ChipChop, johnnynewaza_380300, greg717pa, Jrock177777 and Servonious, in addition to Schill. As covered in August, Schill had already won six titles in BetRivers Poker’s Multi-State Summer Series, which drew 18,700 entries and paid about $581,800 across 96 events.