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New look and location for 2022 World Series of Poker

27 May 2022

The World Series of Poker returns to the summer months and the heat of Las Vegas, a year after postponing last year’s edition to November due to COVID-19. This year’s WSOP, which kicks off Tuesday, is going to have a much different feel.

For the first time in 17 years, the most prestigious tournament in poker will not be taking place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.

Instead, this year’s tournament will be front and center at Bally's – Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.

Bally’s has started its rebranding process and will continue throughout the summer. In early 2022, Caesars Entertainment announced that Bally’s would be changing to Horseshoe Las Vegas. Bally’s will keep everything under the current name during the poker tournament to avoid any confusion.

With a new location, many questions can arise for players, fans and media, including where to park and eat. WSOP hosts Normal Chad and Lon McEachern broke down these topics and gave us a tour of the new WSOP hot spot in the following video, filmed yesterday:



When you hear WSOP, many immediately think of the Main Event. The WSOP will again feature the much-anticipated $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em World Championship, which in 2021 drew a field of 6,650 entrants. This year's Main Event begins on Sunday, 3 July. The deep-stack tournament will continue play through the final table on Friday, 15 July and Saturday, 16 July. All final tables will take place inside Bally’s Event Center.

Ann amazing turnout is expected for this year’s Main Event. In fact, in a press conference yesterday, Ty Stewart, Executive Director of WSOP, said that “I would take the over of 8,774 and that there is no reason for us not to break the all-time Main Event record.” The record of 8,773 entrants in the Main Event came in 2006. Another teaser that Stewart gave us was him mentioning that there is something very “unique” about this year’s Main Event gold bracelet which he is excited about.

Of course, the Main Event is a much-anticipated battle every year, but this year, there will be a total of 88 events this year, with some new ones that are sure to catch some attention:

The $1,000 Buy-In Million Dollar Bounty event runs from 2-4 July. This features a mystery bounty for up to $1 million that players draw for. It begins as a regular tournament with those advancing to Day 2 claiming the bounty of players they knock out. Each player who knocks someone out also gets an additional prize bounty.

There are also smaller buy-ins like the $500 House Warming event that has a $5 million guaranteed prize pool. Those at the WSOP are prepared for this to be an extremely popular event as one of the lower buy-ins but one with a massive prize pool.

From 18-20 July, there will be the Tournament of Champions, a $1 million free-roll tournament open to any of the 88 bracelet winners and gold ring winners from the 2022 WSOP Circuit season. The Tournament of Champions will be the first time all WSOP winners in a given year are brought together for one ultimate bragging rights event featuring regional grinders and international superstars.

I think it is safe to say that this year’s WSOP has all the materials and resources to be bigger and better than ever. We already mentioned the location being dead center Strip, but there is also going to be 160,000 square feet of dedicated poker space and nearly 600 tables for play. Obviously, with that much space and that many tables, you need the help to run it all. Jack Effel, Vice President of WSOP said there will be over 1,500 staffers, including over 1,000 dealers ready to go.

We can expect all of the big names of poker to be in attendance and tossing their chips in the pot over the coming weeks, including Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth and Shaun Deeb.

COVID-19 played a major and unfortunate role last year for the World Series of Poker as it had to move from its normal summer timeframe to November. Luckily, we are back in the normal time of year for the tournament. The WSOP will follow local, state and CDC guidelines relating to COVID-19 that are in effect during the event. While there will be no vaccination requirement to play in the tournament, players will be accountable to follow CDC guidelines appropriate to them as individuals. Based on current state guidelines masks will not be required.
New look and location for 2022 World Series of Poker is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.
Dan Ippolito

As Casino City's associate editor, Dan produces and edits all of our weekly newsletters, and writes about the gaming industry for our websites and the GPWA Times Magazine. Dan graduated from Marist College in 2017 with a degree in Communications and a concentration in Sports. Email him at daniel@casinocity.com, or follow him at @casinocity_dan on Twitter.
Dan Ippolito
As Casino City's associate editor, Dan produces and edits all of our weekly newsletters, and writes about the gaming industry for our websites and the GPWA Times Magazine. Dan graduated from Marist College in 2017 with a degree in Communications and a concentration in Sports. Email him at daniel@casinocity.com, or follow him at @casinocity_dan on Twitter.