On Tuesday, the World Series of Poker announced a complete overhaul to its WSOP Player of the Year system. For the first time in WSOP history, the Player of the Year competition will now use results from WSOP Europe, WSOP Las Vegas, and WSOP Paradise in the chase for poker’s most prestigious honor.
$1,000,000 in prizes to play for
With the 2026 WSOP Player of the Year race escaping the exclusivity of Las Vegas, there is now a $1,000,000 prize pool to be divided amongst the top 100 finishers.
The top-three players will receive a $100,000 WSOP Paradise package. The rest of the players in the top 15 will be awarded a $30,000 WSOP Super Main Event package for WSOP Paradise.
The players ranked 16th to 50th will each win a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package for the Circuit Championship. They will also be put into a random draw for one $30,000 Super Main Event package. The final 50 players will be awarded a $2,500 ticket to the Circuit Championship, with six players receiving an upgrade to a $5,000 Circuit Championship package via random draw.
“We are thrilled to kick off 2026 with a bold new vision for the World Series of Poker,” said Ty Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of WSOP. “By uniting our three flagship live series under a unified, $1M Player of the Year competition, we’re giving players a true global season to chase history. Starting with a monster guarantee in Prague, continuing through our summer homecoming in Las Vegas, and culminating in Paradise, we are dedicated to offering the best value and the biggest stages in the world.”
Previously, the WSOP Player of the Year winner was only awarded a $10,000 seat to the following year’s WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, in addition to the famous banner in the halls of Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
Major changes to the scoring system
As the 2026 WSOP Player of the Year will take place across three competitions, major rule changes to the POY race were inevitable. The first and most obvious change is that scores will count across all three WSOP flagship series. Players will also be able to use their top 15 scores based on the WSOP Player of the Year point formula, up from 10 scores in 2025. Finally, WSOP Online scores will no longer be counted towards the POY rankings.
Previously, all WSOP scores counted towards the POY rankings until Ian Matakis won the WSOP POY in 2023 in controversial fashion, using mostly online results. The WSOP then introduced a 10-score cap in 2024, where players could use a maximum of one online score. Restricted events, such as the Tag Team, Seniors, and Ladies events, continue to be excluded from the POY race.
New POY points formula
The previous formula to calculate WSOP Player of the Year points for each events was never disclosed. There was, and still is, a calculator that you could use to figure out how many points you could earn based on the buy-in event and number of entrants.
Now, the formula has been fully published and can be seen below. Based on early experiments conducted by this author, points are distributed on a flatter basis to award consistently strong finishes as opposed to one-off wins.
In the new system, a $1,000 buy-in tournament with 10,000 entries, 1st place will receive 1213.63 points, while ninth place will receive 509.07 points. Last year, the winner received 1,312 points, while the ninth-place player only picked up 328 points, just 64% of what they’d receive this year.
WSOP Europe releases schedule
In the same announcement, the World Series of Poker announced the 2026 WSOP Europe schedule, which features a dramatic price reduction for the WSOP Europe Main Event. The previous €10,350 WSOPE Main Event will now cost just €5,300 and will also feature a €10,000,000 guarantee.
The 2026 edition of WSOP Europe will take place from March 31 to April 12 in Prague, Czech Republic. This marks the first time that WSOP Europe will be held outside of Rozvadov since 2015. This will also be the first time the series will not take place in the fall.
WSOP Europe will, once again, feature 15 bracelet events, exclusively in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha events. Events will range in price from the €500 COLOSSUS and PLOSSUS Bounty events to the €25,000 GGMillion$ High Roller. 11 of the 15 bracelet events will fall in the €500 to €3,000 price range, making the series affordable for mid-stakes grinders.
Notably, the €1,500 European Circuit Championship has been added to the schedule, featuring a €1,500,000 guarantee. Players who win a WSOP Circuit ring in 2026 can use their awarded $5,000 WSOP package to play this event, while receiving complementary hotel accommodations. They can also wait to use their package at WSOP Paradise to play the $2,500 WSOP Paradise Circuit Championship.
Other new events at WSOP Europe include a €1,000 PLO Double Board Bomb Pot, which has proven extremely popular in Las Vegas. There’s also a €2,500 Rounder Cup, which pits European players against the “Rest of the World.” While unconfirmed, this will likely be a two-day, two-flight event, with European players in one flight and everyone else in the other.
