KEY TAKEAWAYS
CONTENTS
WSOP Main Event Entries and Prize Pools: 2022-2026 at a Glance
The $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, known as the Main Event, drew 9,208 entries at the 2026 World Series of Poker, creating a prize pool of $85,634,400, according to the event results listed on WSOP.com. Of those entries, 1,383 finished in the money, and the champion received $10,000,000. The 2026 field is 5.41% smaller than the 9,735 entries in 2025 and 8.94% smaller than the record 10,112 entries in 2024. This article compiles entries, prize pools, places paid and top prizes for 2022 through 2026 from WSOP.com, then calculates what share of buy-ins reached the prize pool.
Entries reached 10,112 in 2024, and the prize pool reached $94,041,600, the largest of the five years. The 2023 event carried the largest first prize at $12,100,000. Every other year paid $10,000,000 to the winner. All Main Event figures here come from the events held at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, and none of them is a forecast or an estimate.
Entries, Prize Pool and Places Paid: What the Terms Mean
An entry is one paid registration in the Main Event. WSOP.com lists the buy-in as $10,000 for every year in this article, and the 2026 winner announcement states that every player paid the $10,000 buy-in. The Main Event is played in several starting flights, and late registration stays open into the second day of play, so the final entry count is confirmed only when registration closes. The WSOP announces the official total at that point, and the event results page on WSOP.com then carries the same entries figure.
The prize pool is the amount distributed to players. It is lower than entries multiplied by the buy-in, because a portion of each buy-in is retained by the organizer. WSOP.com does not itemize that portion in the pages used here, so this article reports the difference only as a calculated residual, labeled as such. Places paid, shown on WSOP.com as the in-the-money line, is the number of finishers who receive a prize. Some WSOP announcements and the results page can differ by one place for the same event, and the Methodology section notes where that happens.
Top prize and runner-up prize are the payouts to first and second place as listed on WSOP.com. The payout structure changes from year to year, so a larger field does not always produce a larger first prize. The 2024 field was larger than the 2023 field, for example, but the first prize was $10,000,000 in 2024 against $12,100,000 in 2023.
The Data: Five Years of Official Main Event Figures
Table 1 lists the figures exactly as shown on the WSOP.com event pages for each year, with dollar amounts in U.S. dollars.
| Year | Entries | Prize pool | Places paid (in the money) | First prize | Second prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 8,663 | $80,428,575 | 1,287 | $10,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
| 2023 | 10,043 | $93,399,900 | 1,506 | $12,100,000 | $6,500,000 |
| 2024 | 10,112 | $94,041,600 | 1,517 | $10,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
| 2025 | 9,735 | $90,535,500 | 1,462 | $10,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
| 2026 | 9,208 | $85,634,400 | 1,383 | $10,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
The field grew from 8,663 entries in 2022 to 10,043 in 2023, and then to 10,112 in 2024. It then declined in 2025 and 2026. The prize pool moved by the same percentage as entries in each year from 2023 onward, which follows from the pool being a fixed share of buy-ins, as the next section shows. The 2022 prize pool is the one figure that does not follow that pattern, and the Methodology section explains why it is flagged.
Places paid stayed close to 15% of entries in every year, at 1,506 of 10,043 in 2023, 1,517 of 10,112 in 2024, 1,462 of 9,735 in 2025 and 1,383 of 9,208 in 2026. The minimum cash was $15,000 in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 WSOP announcements, and the ninth-place payout at the final table was $1,000,000 or more in 2024, 2025 and 2026 according to the WSOP.com results pages and announcements.
Breakdown: Buy-Ins, Payout Share and the Money Line
Table 2 derives three measures from the official figures: total buy-ins collected, the share of buy-ins that became prize pool, and the share of the pool that went to first place.
where: prize pool is the WSOP.com figure for the year; entries is the WSOP.com entries figure; $10,000 is the listed buy-in.
For 2026, entries of 9,208 multiplied by $10,000 equal $92,080,000, and the prize pool of $85,634,400 divided by that amount is 93.0%. The remaining $6,445,600 is the calculated residual between buy-ins and prize pool.
| Year | Buy-ins collected (derived) | Prize pool | Residual (derived) | Pool as % of buy-ins | Places paid as % of entries | First prize as % of pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $86,630,000 | $80,428,575 | $6,201,425 | 92.84% | 14.86% | 12.43% |
| 2023 | $100,430,000 | $93,399,900 | $7,030,100 | 93.00% | 15.00% | 12.96% |
| 2024 | $101,120,000 | $94,041,600 | $7,078,400 | 93.00% | 15.00% | 10.63% |
| 2025 | $97,350,000 | $90,535,500 | $6,814,500 | 93.00% | 15.02% | 11.05% |
| 2026 | $92,080,000 | $85,634,400 | $6,445,600 | 93.00% | 15.02% | 11.68% |
From 2023 to 2026, the prize pool was 93.00% of buy-ins in each year to two decimals, and places paid were between 15.00% and 15.02% of entries. The 2022 figures are slightly different, at 92.84% and 14.86%, and the pages used here do not explain the difference. First prize as a share of the pool ranged from 10.63% in 2024 to 12.96% in 2023, so the top prize varied more than the overall pool share did.
where: first prize is the WSOP.com top payout; prize pool is the WSOP.com figure for the year.
For 2023, $12,100,000 divided by $93,399,900 is 12.96%. For 2024, $10,000,000 divided by $94,041,600 is 10.63%. The comparison shows that first prize stayed at $10,000,000 in 2024 while places paid rose from 1,506 to 1,517, so the top prize does not move in step with the field size.
Comparison: Year-Over-Year Change and the 2026 Field
| Period | Change in entries | Change in entries % | Change in prize pool | Change in prize pool % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 to 2023 | +1,380 | +15.93% | +$12,971,325 | +16.13% |
| 2023 to 2024 | +69 | +0.69% | +$641,700 | +0.69% |
| 2024 to 2025 | -377 | -3.73% | -$3,506,100 | -3.73% |
| 2025 to 2026 | -527 | -5.41% | -$4,901,100 | -5.41% |
| 2022 to 2026 | +545 | +6.29% | +$5,205,825 | +6.47% |
| 2024 to 2026 | -904 | -8.94% | -$8,407,200 | -8.94% |
where: current is the later year’s figure; prior is the earlier year’s figure.
From 2025 to 2026, entries fell from 9,735 to 9,208, a change of -5.41%. Across the whole window, the 2026 field is 6.29% larger than the 2022 field, so the two recent declines have not erased the growth since 2022. The 2026 field is 8.31% smaller than the 2023 field of 10,043. Over the four years from 2022 to 2026, entries grew at a compound annual rate of about 1.5%, calculated as the fourth root of 9,208 divided by 8,663, minus one.
The WSOP.com announcement of the 2026 Main Event also lists participants by country. The United States accounted for 5,634 participants, equal to 61.2% of the 9,208 entries, followed by Canada at 371, the United Kingdom at 356, France at 296 and Japan at 222. The same announcement lists 111 countries in total and puts California first among U.S. states at 965 participants, ahead of Nevada at 738 and Florida at 634. The announcement does not say whether participants and entries are counted identically, so the shares are indicative.
Methodology & Limitations
Datasets: WSOP.com event results pages for the Main Event of the 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 World Series of Poker (events 70, 76, 81 and 81), and the WSOP.com 2026 event schedule page for event 82, all accessed October 2026. Official announcements on WSOP.com dated July 8, 2024, July 8, 2025, July 9, 2026 and August 6, 2026 supply the minimum cash, final table payouts and the participant breakdown for 2026. Figures are reproduced as published, without rounding.
Calculations: buy-ins collected equal entries multiplied by $10,000; the residual is buy-ins collected minus the WSOP.com prize pool; shares and changes use the formulas shown above. The compound annual rate for entries is (9,208 divided by 8,663) raised to the power of one quarter, minus one, which equals about 1.54%. Every derived figure can be reproduced from the values in Table 1.
Limitations: the 2022 prize pool on the WSOP.com event page is $80,428,575, while other published coverage of that event shows $80,782,475, a difference of $353,900 that the source pages do not explain. This article uses the WSOP.com event page and treats the 2022 pool share as less certain than the other years. Places paid differ by one for 2025, with the July 2025 announcement stating 1,461 and the results page listing 1,462. The residual between buy-ins and prize pool is a calculated value, not a reported fee. Entries describe only the Las Vegas Main Event and exclude other WSOP events, circuit events and online festivals. A calendar year does not equal a fiscal year, and a changed payout structure can alter first prizes without any change in the field.
Key Figures at a Glance
The table below lists the core figures for the 2026 Main Event beside the largest field of the period.
| Figure | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entries | 9,208 | 2026 | WSOP.com |
| Prize pool | $85,634,400 | 2026 | WSOP.com |
| Places paid | 1,383 | 2026 | WSOP.com |
| First prize | $10,000,000 | 2026 | WSOP.com |
| Largest field of the period | 10,112 entries | 2024 | WSOP.com |
| Largest first prize of the period | $12,100,000 | 2023 | WSOP.com |
| Change in entries, 2025 to 2026 | -5.41% | 2025 to 2026 | Derived from WSOP.com |
| Prize pool as % of buy-ins | 93.0% | 2023 to 2026 | Derived from WSOP.com |
Related Data and Next Steps
This compilation covers five years of one tournament. Readers who want a wider view of poker revenue can compare it with the Nevada casino win by game for 2025, which reports $225.9 million of win from poker-room card games. Future updates can add earlier years from WSOP.com once each page is checked, and regulated online poker revenue reported by state agencies. The 2026 figure of 9,208 entries is the latest verified field in this series.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources & References
- WSOP.com — 2022 World Series of Poker, Event #70 Main Event results (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2023 World Series of Poker, Event #76 Main Event results (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2024 World Series of Poker, Event #81 Main Event results (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2025 World Series of Poker, Event #81 Main Event results (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2026 World Series of Poker event schedule and results, Event #82 Main Event (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — Main Event attendance announcement, July 8, 2024 (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2025 Main Event official prize pool and total entries, July 8, 2025 (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — WSOP updates 2026: Main Event bubble, July 9, 2026 (accessed October 2026)
- WSOP.com — 2026 Main Event winner announcement, August 6, 2026 (accessed October 2026)
