Leaderboard: Largest WSOP Tournaments By Field

All of the top ten largest live tournament turnouts in World Series of Poker history have come in the past decade, with three coming at last year’s series, pointing to just how much the industry has rebounded following Black Friday.

The field record was set at the 50th Annual WSOP back in 2019. The $500 buy-in Big 50 attracted more than 28,000 entries to create a prize pool of more than $13.5 million. Femi Fashakin walked away with more than $1.1 million and the bracelet, which dwarfs the Orlando, Florida resident’s second-best score of $34,708.

The next-largest field belonged to a new event that debuted in 2023, which was the $300 buy-in Gladiators of Poker. The prize pool swelled to nearly $5.7 million in that tournament after 23,088 entries were made across four starting flights. Missouri’s Jason Simon hoisted the bracelet in the end, earning nearly half a million dollars as the champion. Unlike the one-off status of the Big 50, the Gladiators of Poker appears to be here to stay, as it is included on the 2024 WSOP schedule.

The massive success of the 2015 Colossus event saw the tournament become a yearly staple of the series. That first running drew 22,374 entries at $565, resulting in nearly $11.2 million in prize money. Texas’ Cord Garcia earned $638,880 as the champion.

There has been a Colossus at each of the following series, with four additional runnings among the top 10 on this leaderboard. The event decreased the buy-in to $400 in 2019 but has not surpassed the 20,000-entry mark since 2016.

There are only two events with four-figure buy-ins among the top ten on this leaderboard, which are the 2023 Mystery Millions and the 2022 Million Dollar Bounty. Both of those tournaments cost $1,000 to enter, with millions set aside for bounty payouts. ♠