WSOP And PokerStars Both Announce Major Series, US Tournament Scene Stacks Up

The email that PokerStars — ahem, PokerStars Exclusively on FanDuel — sent to players Monday afternoon started with the words, “The fuse is lit.”

As far as online poker tournament play in the U.S. goes, those four words do appear to apply. We’re still a very long way from the poker boom days of two decades ago, of course, but the tournament scene is suddenly experiencing a spark not seen since before 2011’s Black Friday.

PokerStars announced in that email to users a major 17-day tournament festival called the PokerStars Ignite Series. And that came less than a week after WSOP Online announced the schedule for its 2026 Online Bracelet series.

Both series are able to offer attractive prize guarantees thanks to interstate pooling among several of the U.S. jurisdictions that have legalized online poker. PokerStars Exclusively on FanDuel now combines players in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and WSOP Online pools the same three states plus Nevada — the latter of which plays host to the in-person World Series of Poker that will run concurrently to the Online Bracelet series.

Spring and summer excitement

The WSOP is still the biggest brand in poker, and its online bracelets carry a prestige no other poker site can match.

The Online Bracelet series will run from May 30 to July 14, the same as the brick-and-mortar World Series (except for the delayed WSOP Main Event final table). The series features 30 bracelet events and $7 million in total guarantees.

Buy-ins range from $215 for a couple of non-bracelet “scramble” events that will award seats in the WSOP Main Event to $5,300 for the no-limit hold’em High Roller 6-Max Championship on June 27.

The WSOP is also establishing a points leaderboard and adding $50,000 in prizes to top finishers there.

The PokerStars Ignite Series can’t quite equal the WSOP’s $7 million in guarantees, but it’s coming close with a $5 million guarantee across the series.

This one starts this Saturday, April 18, and runs through May 4, with 90 events on the schedule.

The main event, beginning Sunday, May 3, costs $300 and features a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. There is also a $1,500 high roller the same day with a $250K guarantee, plus there will be an assortment of tournaments with buy-ins as low as $20.

A million bucks … with an assist

The revamped PokerStars’ first major tournament effort arrived this past Sunday and concluded Monday, with the Sunday Million brand brought back to life — even if it took two tournaments to produce a combined $1 million in guaranteed prize money.

And the house was on the hook for some of that, as neither tournament quite hit its guarantee.

The $1,000 buy-in event fell well short, with 449 entries (112 of which were re-entries). That field played down to 23 competitors when Day 1 play concluded at 1:45 a.m. ET on Monday, and it took about another four hours Monday evening to crown a champion. In the end, the first-place payout of $71,180.50 went to “HailMaryJerry,” and the top 10 finishers each won five figures. The tournament paid out 63 places.

The $100 tournament fared better, but it still ended up with only the promised $500K prize pool — not to mention, hundreds of the seats were awarded in promotional freerolls.

In the end, there were 5,075 entries (including 1,469 re-entries), and the top 750 made the money. They played down to 254 on the first day, resumed Monday at 6 p.m., and wrapped up at 11:46 p.m., with the top six each winning five figures and “FoldItFrank” prevailing for $55,588.