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Shuffling the Stats: Significant Growth Through 75 WSOP Events

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

All signs pointed to a big year. The World Series of Poker showed strong numbers in 2022, the first big year after the pandemic and the first series held at Paris Las Vegas and Bally’s-now-Horseshoe Las Vegas. The 2022 WSOP Main Event showed the second-largest attendance in its history. Players were excited about poker, generally (mostly) happy with the new venue, and hoping to be a part of another poker boom.

This year, the World Series of Poker got even stronger.

As the 2023 WSOP Main Event gets underway, it’s a good opportunity to look at the first 75 live events that led up to that Main Event. Those numbers are in, and they are overwhelmingly positive.

More Entries and Prize Money

With 75 live poker tournaments completed at the 2023 WSOP, we can compare those numbers to the corresponding grouping of events in 2022 – both years excluding the Main Event.

The number of entries is up, as is the amount of prize money awarded thus far. The number of players paid is down, but many players claim that as a positive.

  • Total 2023 entries: 173,467 (up 8.4% from 159,984 in 2022)
  • Total 2023 prize money awarded: $234,323,822 (up 10.5% from $212,230,869 in 2022)
  • Total 2023 players paid: 20,193 (down 9.8% from 22,394 in 2022)

 

The number of women at final tables remains low. Without considering the women-only tournament, only 1.91% of final table players identified as women. When we count the Ladies Championship, it pushes the overall number to 3.47%.

This covers only final table players, as we can track those numbers. The WSOP does not provide these numbers, much less gender statistics for all of the events.

More Ethnic Diversity in 2023

Players claiming the United States as their country affiliation always dominate the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas because it is held in the United States. (This is top-level analysis, folks.)

Of the first 75 live WSOP bracelets awarded in 2023 thus far, however, there is a tad more diversity than in 2022. US players are slightly lagging, and more countries are grabbing that gold this year.

  • United States = 47 in 2023 (49 in 2022)
  • China = 5 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Canada = 4 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Brazil = 3 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Germany = 2 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Argentina = 1 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • Australia = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Austria = 1 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Bulgaria = 1 in 2023 (2 in 2022)
  • Hong Kong = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Israel = 1 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • Japan = 1 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • Moldova = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Netherlands = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Poland = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Portugal = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Switzerland = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • UK = 1 in 2023 (3 in 2022)
  • Ukraine = 1 in 2023 (0 in 2022)
  • Cyprus = 0 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • France = 0 in 2023 (3 in 2022)
  • Hungary = 0 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • Latvia = 0 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • South Korea = 0 in 2023 (1 in 2022)
  • Russia = 0 in 2023 (1 in 2022)

 

Growth in Majority of Events

Of the 75 live WSOP tournaments completed in Las Vegas thus far this summer, we found increased participation in 72% of them.

We compared 67 of the 75 events, as one was the invitation-only Tournament of Champions freeroll, the Heads-Up Championship capped participation at 64 (same as in 2022), and six tournaments thus far have been new to the schedule.

Of the 67 tournaments with comparable events in 2022 and 2023, these are the overall results:

  • 54 events showed increased participation an average of 25.43%
  • 13 events showed decreased participation an average of 10.2%

 

The Breakdown

The tournaments with the most growth from 2022 to 2023 were:

  • $50K PLO High Roller up 88.7%
  • $25K PLO High Roller up 70.1%
  • $1,500 Mixed NLHE/PLO up 68.2%
  • $10K NLHE Super Turbo Bounty Freezeout up 53.2%
  • $2,500 NLHE Freezeout up 51.5%
  • $100K NLHE High Roller up 50%
  • $1,500 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw up 49.1%
  • $10K Limit Hold’em Championship up 45.7%
  • $1,500 Razz up 45.2%
  • $1,500 Mixed Omaha up 41.5%
  • $1K Tag Team up 40.4%
  • $3K NLHE up 40%

 

Notably, the deepstacked tournament structures increased across the board so far, as did every high roller (except the Poker Players Championship) and specialty/featured tournament (except the Mini Main Event).

Let’s look more closely at the specialty/featured events, the ones directed at particular groups of people and weekend players. These are the increases from 2022 to 2023:

  • Salute to Warriors up 34.1%
  • Millionaire Maker up 30.8%
  • Mystery Millions up 28.9%
  • Monster Stack up 27.9%
  • Casino Employees up 22%
  • Ladies Championship up 21%
  • Colossus up 17.1%
  • Super Seniors up 17%
  • Seniors Championship up 13.2%

 

The two major tournaments that decreased were surprising, at least with regard to one of them:

  • Poker Players Championship down 12%
  • Mini Main Event down 9.9%

 

With so many high rollers in the mix, the Poker Players Championship no longer stands out as one of the few must-play high-stakes events for some players. The Mini Main dip, however, was surprising, as all of the other lower buy-in specialty events saw growth. The only problem with the Mini Main was that it conflicted with the Colossus.

As for the 13 tournaments that saw downswings this year, most saw decreases of less than 14%, with the exception of one:

  • $5K Mixed NLHE/PLO down 28%

It’s notable that two PLO-8 events saw lower participation this year, the $1,500 buy-in down 13.7% and the $10K Championship down 2.5%.

WSOP POY Update

The contentious Player of the Year race at this 2023 WSOP has taken some interesting turns.

When we checked in with the POY standings at the halfway mark of the series, Ian Matakis sat atop the leaderboard with a decent lead over his competitors. We explained that many of his results had come in online bracelet events, as the POY points come from open live events and online tournaments offered to Nevada/New Jersey players.

Matakis now has 17 cashes, including a win in Online Event 2 ($500 NLHE Bankroll Builder) and a final table in Online Event 4 (fifth place in the $600 NLHE Ultra Deepstack). He also made deep runs in Event 15 (ninth place in the $1,500 6-Handed NLHE), Event 65 (seventh place in the $5K 6-Handed NLHE), and Event 71 (ninth place in the $50K PLO High Roller).

Chris Brewer won his second bracelet and jumped into second place on the POY leaderboard, trading places with Michael Rodriques Pires Santos. Shaun Deeb remained in third place leading up to the Main Event.

The rest of the list experienced a shakeup, as Jesse Lonis jumped into the top five, David Baker and Jeremy Ausmus won bracelets to make the top ten, and Phil Hellmuth won his historic 17th bracelet to claim tenth place on the list.

As of the start of the Main Event, these were the 2023 WSOP POY standings:

  • Ian Matakis (USA) 4,041.33 points
  • Chris Brewer (USA) 3,600.53 points
  • Shaun Deeb (USA) 3,517.00 points
  • Michael Rodrigues Pires Santos (Portugal) 3,340.63 points
  • Jesse Lonis (USA) 3,015.07 points
  • 6 .Chad Eveslage (USA) 2,848.76 points
  • David Baker (USA) 2,710.92 points
  • Chance Kornuth (USA) 2,689.44 points
  • Jeremy Ausmus (USA) 2,675.24 points
  • Phil Hellmuth (USA) 2,540.54 points

 

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