LIPS Women in Poker Winter Festival 2026 Moves to The Venetian: Schedule, Guarantees and Satellites

The Ladies International Poker Series (LIPS) is heading to a new home for its year-end festival. The 2026 Women in Poker Winter Festival runs at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas from December 8 to 11. It’s the first time the December festival has been held there.

Over four days there are three headline tournaments: an $800 Ladies Championship, a mixed-gender tag team event and a Kings & Queens Bounty that’s open to everyone. Together, the two biggest events guarantee $70,000 in prize money.

Here’s what’s on the schedule, how to qualify cheaply, and why this year’s move matters.

Winter Festival 2026 at a Glance

Full Schedule

Schedule as announced by LIPS and The Venetian. Check the LIPS schedule page for structure sheets and any updates before you travel.

The Main Event: $800 LIPS Ladies Championship

The festival is built around the LIPS Ladies Championship, a two-day No-Limit Hold’em tournament.

• Day 1: Thursday, December 10, at 10:10 a.m.
• Day 2: Friday, December 11, at 10:00 a.m.
• Guarantee: $40,000

What the Guarantee Tells You

At $800 a seat, the $40,000 guarantee is met at roughly 50 entries (before the house takes its cut). LIPS’s summer Ladies event at The Venetian drew a much bigger crowd. That event carried a $150,000 guarantee, and Amber Sullivan from the UK won it for $40,325, per The Venetian’s winners gallery. The winter guarantee is far more modest, which makes it an easier target, and it gives the field a better chance of an overlay if turnout is light.

Qualify for $100

If $800 is more than you want to risk, two $100 Milestone Satellites run at 4 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday. Each one guarantees two Championship seats, however small the field.

The value works like this: if 16 players enter a satellite, one in eight wins an $800 seat for $100. Satellites like these are the best value on the schedule for recreational players.

Wednesday: The LIPS Poker Jingle Tag Team

This event is all about fun. Each team pays $600 to enter, and the $10,000 guarantee works out to about 17 teams.

The one rule: every team must include at least one woman. All-female teams and mixed teams are both welcome. That makes it a good way to bring a partner, a friend or a poker buddy into a women’s festival.

How tag team poker works: teammates share a single stack and take turns at the table, with tag-out rules set by the tournament director. It rewards teams that plan who plays which part of the tournament, for example one teammate for the deep-stack early levels and the other for the short-stack push-fold stages.

Friday: The Kings & Queens Bounty (Open to All)

The festival closes with its most unusual event, the LIPS Kings & Queens Bounty:

• Buy-in: $600, including a $200 bounty on every player
• Guarantee: $30,000
• Field: open to all players, men and women
• Special trophies: the last man standing is crowned the “King” and the last woman standing the “Queen”

Eliminating a player pays you their $200 bounty straight away. That reduces risk for recreational players: knock out just three opponents and you’ve covered your entry.

Why the Move to The Venetian Matters

LIPS has held its Winter Festival on the Strip for the last few years, mostly at Resorts World:

Sources: Poker.org on the 2024 festival and the LIPS 2025 festival page

Resorts World closed its poker room on March 30, 2026, so LIPS needed a new December home. The Venetian is one of the busiest tournament rooms in Las Vegas, and LIPS already ran an $800 Ladies event and a $2,500 Ladies High Roller there during the summer.

The championship buy-in is also more than double the old $360 level. That puts the winter event closer to the summer Ladies events than to a low-cost local festival.

Women’s Poker Is Booming in 2026

The Winter Festival comes after a record year for women’s tournaments in Las Vegas:

Sources: DeucesCracked on Skye Chen’s record win, Cardplayer Lifestyle on the Aria event, Venetian winners gallery, MTTDB

The WSOP Ladies record beat 2025’s 1,368 entries. Remarkably, it was the first live tournament Skye Chen had ever entered. Results like that are why women’s festivals keep growing.

About LIPS

The Ladies International Poker Series was founded by Lupe Soto, who is still its CEO. It has been running women’s poker events for about two decades. LIPS runs three Las Vegas festivals a year:

• Spring, at South Point;
• Summer, during the WSOP, spread across several casinos;
• Winter, in December.

It also runs ladies’ events at casinos across the US and Latin America, and an online series.

Tips If You’re Planning to Play

1. Book early. December in Vegas overlaps with the National Finals Rodeo and other events, so hotel prices can jump. The Venetian has rooms on-site, but they fill quickly.
2. Play a satellite first. At $100 with two guaranteed seats, it’s the cheapest way into the $800 Championship.
3. Stay the whole week. Satellites on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Tag Team on Wednesday, the Championship from Thursday, and the Bounty on Friday give you a full poker week for a modest budget.
4. Budget sensibly. A realistic plan is one satellite, the Championship and the Bounty, which comes to $1,500 before travel. Use our poker bankroll calculator to check you can afford it.
5. Explore the rest of the room. The Venetian also runs daily tournaments and DeepStack series events through much of the year

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