How World Series of Poker will be bigger than ever at Bally’s and Paris in Las Vegas

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, May 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Ty Stewart ducked down to read a question off a computer monitor from an online audience during a World Series of Poker news conference Thursday afternoon at Bally’s Las Vegas.

The question asked Stewart, the WSOP’s executive director, to make a prediction on the number of players who will enter the $10,000 buy-in Main Event later this summer. By his own admission, such an inquiry has prompted Stewart to keep his head lowered and give a non-answer in past years.

But this time around, Stewart looked up, smirked and spoke with conviction.       

“I will be on record this year as taking the ‘over’ 8,774 (players),” he said. “There’s no reason for us to not break the all-time Main Event record. I expect that we will do it.”

The previous record for Main Event entrants came in 2006 when poker’s traditional world championship event attracted 8,773 players. It’s rarely come close to topping that figure ever since with an average of 6,558 players per year including 6,650 last November.

But organizers say this year is different. Everything, including the Main Event, is going to be bigger when the 2022 World Series of Poker kicks off on Tuesday May 31 for its debut run at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.

“We’re now positioned to be a total Las Vegas experience,” Stewart said, “not just a poker tournament.”

The WSOP had been held at the Rio since 2004, a year before the tournaments’ current power duo of Stewart and Vice President/Tournament Director Jack Effel started working exclusively on the event. Relocation rumors had persisted for nearly a decade, but officially got put into motion when Caesars Entertainment sold the Rio in 2019.

The move became official at the conclusion of last year’s delayed event — because of the pandemic, it was the first time since Caesars acquired the WSOP that it wasn’t staged in the summer. Some may have expected Caesars to carry over virtually the same WSOP blueprint it had perfected at the Rio Convention Center to similar spaces at Bally’s and Paris, but that won’t be the case.

The WSOP brass spent Thursday describing how much larger the new setup, which encompasses 200,000 square feet of playing space, is and why it will allow a grander stage for the 88 total tournaments scheduled for the next eight weeks.    

 “We’re so glad that we’re here on the Strip,” said longtime WSOP/ESPN color commentator Norman said. “It’s going to be a great new energy here. It’s going to be a great new chapter for the World Series of Poker.”

In another way, Caesars is hailing the relocation as a return to the WSOP’s roots. The only other location where the event was held before the Rio was Binion’s Horseshoe for its first 33 years.

Bally’s is currently undergoing a renovation and rebrand of the property to Horseshoe Las Vegas, one that should be complete in time for the 2023 WSOP.

“It’s history in the making when you take the most iconic poker brand with the legendary Horseshoe on the 50-yard line of the Las Vegas Strip,” said Jason Gregorec, senior vice president and general manager of Bally’s and Paris.

That history is the reason all 88 bracelet events will culminate with final tables — all equipped with spectator-seating areas — at the Bally’s (soon to be Horseshoe) Events Center. Bally’s Grand Ballroom will also host tournament action, even though the biggest single room will be a short walk through the casino floor and shopping promenade to Paris’s Concord Ballroom.

Effel said 308 of the planned 582 total poker tables will be in the Concord, including a dedicated, upgraded area to both tournaments with $10,000 and higher buy-ins and high-stakes cash games. A temporary casino cage is set up across the hall in the Champagne Room.

As Effel on Thursday shared a projection of $250 million in financial transactions to take place in the room over the course of the summer, workers pushing a couple carts full of supplies past him. The noise of a carpenter using an electric drill on an illuminated WSOP sign nearby also forced him to raise his voice.    

Work is far from done on the new WSOP venue, but it will be concluded in time for doors opening Tuesday morning.  

“We feel really good about where we are,” Effel said. “Everything gets set up pretty fast.”

The first major event for the most successful professional players commences Tuesday afternoon with a $100,000 buy-in High Roller Bounty no-limit hold’em tournament. The first one to test Bally’s and Paris from a logistical standpoint with a flood of players comes Thursday June 2 with the $500 buy-in Housewarming no-limit hold’em tournament.

The WSOP is guaranteeing a $5 million prize pool and expecting more than 13,000 entries for the Housewarming. It’s the first of 10 WSOP events that Stewart says will wind up as the 10 biggest tournaments in the world in 2022.

The WSOP has come a long way since its humble beginnings consisting of seven big-time gamblers getting together at the original Horseshoe. And with the move to what’s soon to be the new Horseshoe, Stewart believes there’s still room to grow.

“It’s a key milestone for this event and poker overall,” he said. “After 52 years, we’re finally a headliner.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or