WSOP 2024 Satellites
For the third year in a row, the World Series of Poker will take over two casinos on the Las Vegas Strip – Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe (formerly Bally’s) Las Vegas. The first year at the new location delivered record numbers. This included players from more than 100 countries who added to a total prize pool of $347.9M. Last year, there were more tournaments and tables in the two casino ballrooms, and the overall numbers were much higher. From 95 live tournaments and 20 online events, players won more than $425M.
In 2024, players can expect even bigger numbers for the 55th edition of the World Series of Poker. The number of live tournaments is set at 99, and online events will be added to the schedule as well.
There is no question that there will be live and online satellites for many of the tournaments, especially the Main Event.
What is a WSOP Satellite?
A satellite is a tournament in which the prizes are entries to a larger tournament. Satellite tournaments allow players to win a seat to a higher buy-in tournament for a comparatively smaller investment. For example, 2003 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker satellited his way into the tournament for only $86 and won $2,500,000!
There can be different layers to satellites. Some of them will award a direct seat into the tournament you want to play. These satellites often cost a higher percentage of the target tournament buy-in to enter. Others will award a seat into another satellite that offers a direct seat. The lowest buy-in satellites require winning three or four tournaments before you even enter the one you want to play, and they are most common in online poker.
Online poker satellites can be incredibly cheap and will often cost somewhere between a few cents and a couple of dollars to enter. Live satellites usually offer entries at 10% of the actual buy-in. For example, many satellites to a $10K buy-in event will cost around $1K to enter, and one in every ten players will win a seat.
Live Landmark Satellites
Every year, the WSOP hosts satellites at the site of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas to offer the opportunity for players to win seats into bracelet events at a discount. These are now called “landmark satellites” and follow a particular structure.
A landmark satellite (other tournament series may refer to it as a “milestone satellite”) is one in which players must accumulate a certain number of chips to win the seat they seek. In normal satellites, players must survive to a certain point at which all players win their seats. For instance, a normal satellite may have enough players to award 10 seats, so when the field is thinned to just 10 players, action stops, and each player wins a seat. In a landmark structure, however, players must accumulate a certain number (value) of chips to win. For example, when the satellite begins, the floorperson will announce the number of seats available and the chip landmark to reach. When a player hits that goal, they alert the floor, their chips are removed, and they immediately walk away with their seat.
This year, there are a number of special landmark satellites running daily, through which players can win casino value chips for tournament buy-ins only. The daily mega landmark schedule will run May 28 to July 15 as follows:
- $240 buy-in at 3pm (multiples of $2K paid in casino value chips)
- $580 buy-in at 7pm (multiples of $5K paid in casino value chips)
- $1,100 buy-in at 7pm (multiples of $10K paid in casino value chips or direct entry)
- $135 buy-in at 10pm (multiples of $1K paid in casino value chips)
Special landmark mega satellites will run before particular tournaments with seats awarded in direct entries as follows:
- $25K NLHE Heads-Up (Event 6): $2,700 buy-in at 6pm (May 29)
- $1K Mystery Millions (Event 5): $135 buy-in at 12pm or $240 buy-in at 4pm (May 30 – June 1)
- $25K NLHE 6-H HR (Event 21): $2,700 buy-in at 11am (June 5)
- $300 Gladiators of Poker (Event 20): $50 buy-in at 12pm (June 5-8)
- $25K NLHE HR (Event 26): $2,700 buy-in at 6pm (June 8)
- $50K NLHE HR (Event 39): $625 buy-in at 3pm –> $5,300 buy-in at 6pm (June 13)
- $100K NLHE HR (Event 47): $120 buy-in at 12pm –> $850 buy-in at 3pm –> $7,500 buy-in at 6pm (June 17)
- $250K SHR (Event 55): $2,750 buy-in at 3pm –> $25,350 buy-in at 6pm (June 20)
- $50K Poker Players Championship (Event 58): $625 at 3pm –> $5,300 at 6pm (June 21-22)
- $25K PLO HR (Event 73): $320 buy-in at 3pm –> $2,700 buy-in at 6pm (June 28)
- $50K PLO HR (Event 79): $625 buy-in at 3pm –> $5,300 buy-in at 6pm (July 1)
- $50K NLHE HR (Event 92): $625 buy-in at 3pm –> $5,300 buy-in at 6pm (July 11)
- $25K HORSE HR (Event 96): $2,700 buy-in at 6pm (July 13)
Further, there will be satellites running for every $5K or $10K buy-in bracelet event. They will run at 7pm the night before the bracelet event begins, with $580 buy-in satellites for the $5K events and $1,100 buy-in satellites for $10K events.
For Main Event landmark satellites, see next section, just below.
Main Goals
The World Series of Poker Main Event is one of the tournaments for which most players want to win their way. The buy-in is $10K, which is prohibitive for many people.
Players compete in online poker satellites to win prize packages and Main Event seats, and they compete in live satellites at the WSOP. Some players even establish their own leagues and home games, wherein they play for weeks or months, contributing small amounts each time, and the ultimate winner eventually goes to play the Main Event.
For live players at the WSOP, they can play in landmark mega satellites around the time of the Main Event flights. Those will play as follows:
- $145 buy-in at 8am into 1pm mega (July 2-7)
- $580 buy-in at 10am (July 2-7)
- $260 buy-in at 2pm into 7pm mega (July 2-7)
- $1,100 buy-in at 1pm (July 2-7)
- $580 buy-in at 4pm (July 2-7)
- $2,200 buy-in at 7pm (July 2-7)
- Turbo $1,100 buy-in at 8am (July 3-8)
The WSOP’s global online poker partner, GGPoker, now sends hundreds of players to the Main Event each year. Via its “Road to Vegas” promotion, GGPoker sent 774 players to the 2023 Main Event, and they cashed for more than $5M in total. This year, GGPoker plans to send 1,000 players to the 2024 WSOP Main Event.
GGPoker will run more than 10,000 online poker satellites on its dot-com site for players in various parts of the world, excluding the United States. American players can compete for 91 prize packages to be awarded on ClubGG, the subscription poker site also running a “Road to Vegas” promotion.
WSOP’s proprietary online poker site in the US operates only in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Spread across those sites, there are a plethora of opportunities to win Main Event seats each year. In 2023, WSOP.com in aforementioned American states, plus the province of Ontario in Canada, sent 450 players to the Main Event.
The WSOP sites are already offering seats via deposit bonus drawings and promotional freerolls to award Main Event seats. Monthly satellite opportunities will increase in number as the summer nears, but there are currently (as of February 2024) satellites running every weekend – Saturdays at 4:30pm ET for $320 and Sundays at 3:30pm ET for $215.
Main Event Maynia
The WSOP launched a program in 2023 called Main Event Maynia. It allowed for land-based partner casinos around the United States and globally to host qualifier series for Main Event prize packages. Players can play tiered satellites to win their way toward a $10K seat.
The 2024 Main Event Maynia was teased with a list of these US casinos:
- Horseshoe St. Louis (Missouri)
- Grand Victoria Elgin (Illinois)
- Harrah’s Cherokee (North Carolina)
- Horseshoe Tunica (Mississippi)
- Harrah’s Pompano Beach (Florida)
- Thunder Valley (Northern California)
- Turning Stone (New York)
- Horseshoe Las Vegas (Nevada)
- Foxwoods (Connecticut)
- Graton (Southern California)
However, there was no follow-up for 2024 Main Event Maynia via land-based casinos as happened in 2023. It appears that it did not happen.
FAQs
The WSOP will be hosted between two connecting casinos: Horseshoe and Paris in Las Vegas in Nevada, USA.
A WSOP satellite is a tournament wherein the prize is a seat to a WSOP bracelet event. There are WSOP satellites on some online poker sites and in brick-and-mortar casinos in Las Vegas.
In many past years, WSOP satellite winners collected lammers. They could then use those lammers to buy in to the bracelet events or sell the lammers to another player. Those who specialized in satellite play could focus on those qualifying events and sell any extra seats they didn’t need. That policy has changed. Players are no longer awarded lammers and cannot resell seats that they win. If a player wins a WSOP satellite, they will automatically be registered for that specific bracelet event.
You can qualify for the WSOP by winning a seat through a WSOP 2024 satellite online or at participating land-based casinos.
The length of a World Series tournament depends on the exact event you play. For example, some last only one day, whereas the Main Event takes about two weeks to win.
When you cash in a WSOP event, you will pay tax on your winnings if over a certain amount. However, depending on your country of residency, you may be entitled to claim all or some of this tax back.
The WSOP Main Event costs $10,000 to enter.
When you enter a WSOP satellite, there is usually at least one seat or prize package guaranteed in the prize pool. More may be added if enough players join to cover the cost of additional packages. Once registration ends, the final prize pool is declared, and you find out how many seats are on offer. For example, if there are three seats available, the tournament plays down until only three players are left. Once this happens, all three players are awarded a seat in the WSOP tournament, no matter how many chips each player has in their stack.
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