WSOP to celebrate 50th year at 2019 event in Las Vegas

The 50th World Series of Poker (WSOP) – the longest-running, richest and most prestigious tournament series – opens its doors on Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

This marks the 50th running of the famed tournament series and special events are being planned throughout to commemorate, including a celebratory gala and awards evening on Saturday, June 29 and a huge opening weekend event. The full schedule is still being assembled, but seven notable events have been finalized.

The Big 50 is a must play event for poker players. To celebrate our 50th, the WSOP is making everyone’s initial entry into this event rake-free. All $500 of the entry will go entirely to the prize pool. (Anyone who re-enters pays the normal rake, including re-entries into another flight). The Big 50 features four starting flights (Thursday-Sunday am) where players begin play with a whopping 50,000 in chips and play 12, 50-minute levels on Day 1. The WSOP has a $5 million prize pool guarantee, as well as ensuring the winner claims $1 million for the Big 50.

“We’re excited to commence our golden event,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “We expect our opening weekend Big 50 event to be one of the largest in our history, and certainly one of the best value tournaments ever offered. This is part of our concerted plans to make the 2019 WSOP a better value all-around.”

New wrinkles and more additions will be announced with the specific event schedule in the New Year.

A record 123,865 entries participated in the 2018 WSOP, creating a 49-year high of $266,889,193 in prize money. The average WSOP gold bracelet event in 2018 had a $3,421,656 prize pool with $655,337 going to the winner.

The 2018 WSOP featured huge field sizes once again in signature events, with the Main Event (7,874), Millionaire Maker (7,361), Monster Stack (6,260), Crazy Eights (8,598), Seniors Championship (5,918) and Colossus (13,070) combining to attract a staggering 49,081 entries. The majority of these signature events return in 2019, with the addition of a new opening weekend huge value event to help usher in the 50th running of the WSOP – the Big 50.

Buy-ins for tournaments at the Rio will start as low as $70. Single table satellites and live poker games: low, medium and high limit will begin on May 28 and run 24 hours a day throughout the seven-week series taking place in the spacious Rio Convention Center for the 15th consecutive year.

Room reservations are being accepted across Caesars’ Las Vegas properties with rates as low as $33 for existing Caesars Rewards members. Individual event online pre-registration won’t open until March/April, after all events have been determined and approved by regulators.

Nearly 500 poker tables will be set up across more than 100,000 square-feet of ballroom space to accommodate the thousands of players from around the world who attend poker’s annual Woodstock.

WSOP.com’s real-money online poker offerings in New Jersey and Nevada will be the exclusive online home for players in these states to win seats into WSOP events, including the Main Event, as well as to participate in the exclusive online WSOP official gold bracelet events. While in New Jersey or Nevada, eligible players can play on WSOP.com, whether a resident or not, and satellites are expected to run regularly throughout the WSOP. 888Poker remains our international online poker partner in most jurisdictions, with plenty of satellite qualifications planned to award seats to the WSOP in Las Vegas.

The full event-by-event schedule is expected to be released sometime in the first quarter of 2019. All above announced dates, times and events are subject to change.