Last Updated on September 2, 2026 by Bala Kumar
The $5,000 WSOP Online Main Event has been quietly building since August 16, and on September 21 all of it converges into a single day. Day 2 begins at 18:00 UTC, the final table follows on September 22, and somewhere in there a player who may never have set foot in Las Vegas becomes a World Series of Poker champion.
The essentials
| Detail | |
| Event | #28, $5,000 WSOP Online Main Event |
| Guarantee | $25,000,000 |
| Day 1 flights | 19, running since August 16 |
| Day 2 | Monday, September 21, 18:00 UTC |
| Final table | Tuesday, September 22 |
| Broadcast | GGPoker.tv from 18:45 UTC, hosted by Jeff Gross and Phil Hellmuth |
| Platform | GGPoker (international) |
Why the $25 million is probably a floor
Guarantees make headlines. This one is unlikely to be the number that matters.
Last year’s edition drew 5,961 entries and built a prize pool of $28,314,750 — comfortably past the guarantee. Benjamin “bencb789” Rolle won it for $3,900,707, twelve months after finishing eighth in the same tournament.
Two things point the same direction this year. The field has 19 starting flights to accumulate entries rather than a compressed window, and the wider 2026 WSOP Online festival is tracking against a 2025 series that paid out more than $354 million overall. A repeat of last year’s turnout puts the prize pool comfortably above $28 million and first place near $4 million.
Structure: what you’re actually signing up for
This is not a standard multi-day online tournament, and the format rewards players who understand it before they register.
Starting stack: 60,000 chips, or 300 big blinds. Deep, by online standards.
Blind levels: 20 minutes. Last Chance flights speed up to 12 and 8 minutes.
Late registration: unlimited re-entries, open through 14 levels on Day 1 and 12 levels in the Last Chance flights.
Day 1 ends when 10% of registered players remain.
The rule that changes everything: you can play as many Day 1 flights as you like, but only your single largest stack carries forward to Day 2. Bag a short stack on Wednesday and a monster on Saturday, and only the monster survives.
That last point reshapes strategy completely. A marginal stack late on Day 1 has almost no value if you intend to fire another flight — which is why you’ll see players gambling far harder near the bubble of a flight than the chip counts alone would justify. If you’re only playing one bullet, expect the table around you to be looser than a normal Day 1.
How to get in for less than $5,000
Most of the field won’t pay full price.
GGPoker runs a step satellite ladder into the Main Event starting at $5.50, climbing through $55 and $525 before reaching a seat. Daily satellites and Flash Satellites run alongside it throughout the series. The math is simple: three successful steps from $5.50 is a $5,000 seat won for the price of a coffee.
There’s also an integrated staking feature that lets you sell up to 100% of your action through the client, which is worth knowing about if the buy-in is above your normal bankroll ceiling. Sell responsibly — selling action doesn’t remove the variance, it just moves who carries it.
What’s left on the festival schedule
The Main Event is the centrepiece, but it’s not the only thing happening in September.
| Date | Event | Guarantee |
| Sep 7 | $250 Mystery Millions (Day 2) | $10,000,000, with a $1,000,000 top bounty |
| Sep 14 | $400 COLOSSUS (Day 2) | $5,000,000 |
| Sep 14 | $400 PLOSSUS (Final Stage) | $2,000,000 |
| Sep 21 | $5,000 WSOP Online Main Event (Day 2) | $25,000,000 |
| Sep 28 | $10,000 GGMillion$ High Rollers (Day 2) | $10,000,000 |
The GGMillion$ High Rollers final table on September 29 closes the festival.
Already in the books: the $300 Gladiators of Poker ($3M), the $500 Mini Main Event ($5M), the ¥800 Asia Championship (¥25M) and the $1,500 Millionaire Maker ($5M, with $1M guaranteed to the winner).
The wider series, by the numbers
- 33 WSOP gold bracelets
- Six weeks, August 16 through September 29
- Buy-ins from $100 to $25,000
- Nearly $70 million in total guarantees across the schedule
- Ten multi-day events with guarantees between $1 million and $25 million
- Seven bracelets awarded in Omaha variants
- 50+ side tournaments daily
- $5 million in added promotions
The promotions are worth more than they look
Three separate pools sit on top of the prize money, and registering for any bracelet event enters you automatically.
$3M Continental Flipouts. Players are grouped into four global regions. Every time a bracelet is won, everyone from the winner’s region who entered that event — including via satellites and Steps — is auto-registered into a matching Flipout worth up to $250,000. There are 33 of them, one per bracelet event. Your stack is set by the highest buy-in you played, and you don’t need to be at your desk to win.
$1M Super Pass Bonus. Every bracelet winner also collects a $30,000 Super Pass, a direct entry to the Super Main Event at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas this December — the one carrying a $50 million guarantee.
$1M Ranking Freeroll. The top ten countries on the bracelet leaderboard each receive a country-exclusive freeroll.
The Flipout structure is the genuinely unusual one. It means a bracelet event you busted early can still pay you, purely because someone from your continent went on to win it.
US players: this isn’t your series
Worth stating plainly, because it catches people out every year. The WSOP Online International festival on GGPoker is not available to players in the United States.
American players in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey play a separate WSOP Online Circuit series on the state-regulated WSOP app, running September 12 through September 23 with $1.5 million in guarantees across 12 daily ring events. Every winner there receives a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package. Different platform, different schedule, different prize pools.
What to watch
Whether the guarantee gets crushed. Last year’s overlay-free $28.3 million came from 5,961 entries. With 19 flights feeding into one Day 2, the entry count is the number to track on September 21.
The re-entry dynamic. Unlimited re-entries plus a largest-stack-only rule produces a Day 2 field that skews toward big stacks. Expect a faster, more aggressive final day than the deep starting stack suggests.
The broadcast. Hellmuth on commentary for a $25 million online Main Event final table is its own draw, whatever you think of the man.
The Paradise connection. Every bracelet won in this series is also a $30,000 seat in December’s Super Main Event. For mid-stakes players, that’s arguably the more valuable half of the prize.
FAQs
When is the WSOP Online Main Event?
Day 2 is Monday, September 21 at 18:00 UTC. The final table plays September 22.
How much is the buy-in?
$5,000, with satellite routes starting at $5.50.
Can I still enter?
Day 1 flights have been running since August 16 and continue up to Day 2. Check the WSOP Online tab in the GGPoker client for remaining flights and Last Chance times.
What happens if I play multiple flights?
Only your largest stack advances to Day 2. Everything else is forfeited.
Is the bracelet the same as the Las Vegas one?
Yes. WSOP Online bracelets are official WSOP gold bracelets.
Can US players enter?
Not this one. Players in NV, MI, PA and NJ have a separate WSOP Online Circuit series September 12–23.
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