Fresh off the WPT Rolling Thunder Main Event, the World Poker Tour has announced the schedule for the second half of the 2024 season and it truly puts the “World” in World Poker Tour.
“The first half of Season XXII has been outstanding,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska in last week’s reveal. “Looking ahead to the second half of the season, we think there is plenty for poker players to get excited about as we will host festivals on four different continents with sensational global casino partners.”
Focusing on the Main Tour, the first stop of the back half of 2024 is WPT Macau, running June 18-24 at Wynn Palace. The championship event will be June 20-24 and have a buy-in of HKD 40,000 (USD$5,111).
In September, it’s off to Australia for the appropriately named WPT Australia, running September 12-25, hosted by The Star Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane. The final table of the AUD$8,000 (USD$5,187) championship event, slated for September 20-25, will be live streamed.
The rest of the stops on the Main Tour are back in the United States, starting with WPT bestbet Scramble October 31-November 19 at bestbet Jacksonville. The $5,000 championship event is scheduled for November 15-19 and will be broadcast live on bestbetLive.
Staying in Florida, the WPT Seminole Hard Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open will be November 20-December 4, with the $3,500 buy-in championship November 29-December 4. The final table will also be live streamed.
And as if there was any doubt, the 2024 World Poker Tour season will conclude with the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. The Tour has not released any details about it yet, but there is absolutely no reason to think it won’t be gigantic, just like the first two.
The first WPT World Championship (at least in its current form) in 2022 had a crazy $15 million guarantee, the largest live tournament guaranteed prize pool ever. And it worked – it attracted 2,960 entries, generating a prize pool of close to $30 million. Not only that, but players gave the entire experience rave reviews.
Emboldened by 2022’s success, the WPT went nuts in 2023, guaranteeing $40 million for the WPT World Championship. It got around 900 more entries than the year before, but it fell short of the guarantee. But a guarantee is just that, a guarantee, and the World Poker Tour was happy to pony up the overlay. Once again, players had a fantastic time.
There are currently two WPT stops in progress: WPT Korea, which began on Thursday, and WPT Voyage Championship, which kicked off today on a cruise ship, the Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady.
