The World Poker Tour announced Tuesday it’s planning to spend more than $5 million on this year’s December festival at the Wynn, December 3-23, but none of that money will support the prize pool of the company’s signature World Championship.
Less than a year after guaranteeing a $40 million prize pool for the WPT World Championship, its CEO and President Adam Pliska announced this year’s Championship will not have a prize pool guarantee.
Instead, in an interview given exclusively to PokerOrg before the announcement (click the video above to watch now), Pliska said the WPT has created a $5 million freeroll that will begin the day before the World Championship, on December 13. The WPT is launching ClubWPT Gold, a sweepstakes-based poker platform that will be available to most of the US and will serve as the primary mechanism for awarding seats to $5 million freeroll.
Shrugging off the suggestion the WPT is raising a white flag in an undeclared war against the WSOP, Pliska told PokerOrg he fully expects criticism from some circles as much as he expects applause from the larger poker community.
“I assure you, someone is going to say, that's an insane decision,” Pliska said. “The WPT has been trying to write its own narrative. They really are committed to giving back to the players and giving back to the community.”
War history: $2.4 million the hard way
In December 2023, the WPT gave $2.4 million back to the community the hard way.
Just a year removed from doubling its 2022 $15 million Championship guarantee, the WPT went big and announced a $40 million guarantee for its most prestigious event. Meanwhile, the WSOP and GGPoker ran their first WSOP Paradise event in the Bahamas and drew more than 3,000 entries to the $5,000 Main Event. Days later, the WPT World Championship fell $2.4 million short of the $40 million guarantee.
Once it became clear the 2023 Championship guarantee would require the WPT writing a check, Pliska said that $40 million guarantee had always been a stretch goal and waved away the notion that the WSOP event in the Bahamas was truly meaningful to the WPT effort.
“We’re competing against ourselves,” Pliska said at the time.
The WPT took its lumps and online jabs from WSOP friends and staff and then made up the shortfall without any public complaint.
This year, the WSOP and GGPoker doubled down on their Paradise event and announced a $50 million guaranteed $25,000 buy-in Super Main Event for their festival, which will run in the Bahamas from December 6-19.
The WPT’s answer?
Rather than spend $2.4 million on a missed guarantee, the company is going to spend more than double that figure throwing a $5 million freeroll.
“We've made the decision, and we're really proud that we're going to be able to do this for players,” Pliska said. “At the end of the day, people are going to sit back and go, ‘that is an experience that we have never seen before.' And that's what we want.’”
$5 million the easy way: Giving it all away
Pliska told PokerOrg that they will give away 2,000 seats to the $5 million freeroll and offer a deep pay structure. Unlike the similar PokerStars PSPC giveaway structure, no player will be able to buy their way into the freeroll.
The WPT said its just-announced ClubWPT Gold sweepstakes platform will serve as the primary mechanic for the freeroll giveaways, but there will be other opportunities for players to win their way into the event.
“What you’re going to see over the next few months are promotions, through ambassadors and influencers who are having contests, and the only predicate is that you’re signed up,“ said Pliska, referring to the new ClubWPT Gold platform. "It’s going to result in a really diverse group of people who are going to play, come to the Wynn and have that experience."
Of the $5 million in the freeroll pool, the WPT is guaranteeing $1 million to the winner. Another $1 million of that pool will be paid out as 100 individual entries to the WPT World Championship.
“This is the biggest thing we've ever done in 22 years of the World Poker Tour, and we're delighted to do it,” Pliska said. “This is going to have long-term ramifications.”
To lock up a seat in the $5 million freeroll, players have to win what the WPT is calling a Golden Passport which requires a ClubWPT Gold membership. The WPT says it plans to release more details on how the seats will be given away in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the WPT World Championship will have one fewer starting flight than it did in 2023. The first of three flights begins on December 14.
How big will the 2024 World Championship be?
While the WPT is putting emphasis on the ClubWPT Gold $5 million freeroll, Pliska remains adamant the World Championship will remain its flagship event of the year.
“We have all of those components before to make sure that that event is as prestigious and as great as it possibly can be,” Pliska said.
Pliska declined to speculate on how the World Championship prize pool will compare to the previous years, and admitted he is already anticipating some pushback.
“I don't mind that. Maybe we've made the wrong decision,” Pliska said. “But I am comfortable we are making a decision that's good for the ecology of poker.”
Elaborating on that sentiment, Pliska pointed out that the 2023 overlay money ended up getting distributed to a relatively small number of people relative to the size of the poker community. Pliska insists the $5 million freeroll is a much different kind of prize distribution, and he thinks it’s a better one.
“Now it's getting spread out, and everybody is benefiting from this,” he said.
