One of the vintage poker series on the East Coast returns in January, with the 2025 edition of the Borgata Winter Poker Open powered by BetMGM. The Borg, as it's affectionately known, will host the 2025 BWPO from January 2-16, offering $5M in guaranteed prize money across 32 'main' events.
The 15-day series is slated to offer a broad mix of buy-in levels and poker variants in its drive to serve a wide variety of players. Buy-ins range from $220 to a $10,000 high roller that caps the series, while the $3,500 no-limit hold'em Championship begins on January 12 with the first of two Day 1 starting flights. The Championship event offers a $2 million guarantee.
The 32 main events are supported by another 26 qualifying tourneys beginning on New Year's Day and running throughout the series. The Borgata has already published the complete schedule of events for both the main events and the qualifiers.
Highlights include BetMGM online qualifiers
The buildup to the early-January festival has already begun. Exclusive online qualifiers are running now on BetMGM Poker, which is available in New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania and are priced as low as $2.
The series also includes a special online-to-live hybrid event, the $100,000 BetMGM Online Hybrid Championship. This hybrid tourney starts online on Sunday, January 5, and plays down to a final table, which will be played live at the Borgata on January 9. Players from New Jersey and Michigan can participate, but they must travel to the Borgata for the live portion of the event. BetMGM players in Pennsylvania will be offered their own qualifying channels.
As for the series in general, online registration for live BWPO events is also available through the BetMGM Poker platform. And for the first time, same-day event registration will be available through the BetMGM Poker app.
That will help address one issue that's hampered some recent Borgata festivals, meaning the somewhat limited tourney space at the venue. As the Borgata's poker landing page declares, "All poker tournaments will have limited seating available. Registration will open one (1) hour prior to the start of any event" – which likely will apply to the same-day app-based registration as well. "Players will be registered on a first come, first serve basis. No alternate seating will be provided. Players re-entering must proceed to the back of the registration line."
The 2025 BWPO will also include a live Championship Chase qualifier on January 9 that will feed into the $3,500 BWPO Championship event. This qualifer will award at least 15 Championship seats, plus more entries into the following day's BetMGM Bounty Shootout.
Alex Queen won the Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship event in 2024.
Plenty of live coverage
Whether playing or not, poker players and fans will be able to keep tabs on the action nearly as it happens. The Borg has already scheduled 11 days of live-streamed coverage, beginning with five preliminary tourneys before rolling into championship and high-roller coverage. The live streams will air on BetMGM’s YouTube channel.
Among the preliminary events to be streamed is the BetMGM Big League Live Stream on January 10. This is a special single-table tournament connected to BetMGM's partnering digital baseball show, Foul Territory. The show’s hosts and several Major League Baseball players will play in that day's BetMGM Bounty Shootout, and then move over to the special single-table event.
PokerOrg will also be on the floor with our unique Instant Live coverage of the series, offering plenty of poker personalities and an insider take on the action.
“The Borgata Winter Poker Open provides the perfect opportunity for BetMGM to carry our 2024 momentum into the new year,” said Angus Nisbet, VP of Gaming, BetMGM. “After merging our New Jersey and Michigan player pools in November, we are excited to offer players in all our U.S. markets another chance to win their way to million-dollar live events at Borgata.”
