Ty Stewart guides World Series of Poker into a new era

By Case Keefer (contact)

Wednesday, June 1, 2022 | 2 a.m.

A rain delay struck poker’s world championship seven years ago. A record-breaking summer storm caused water to seep through the Rio Convention Center’s ceiling and drip onto a section of tables during one of the first days of the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event.

It’s perhaps the most infamous example of an unpredictable occurrence that seemed to accompany the WSOP at the Rio over recent years. It was an unpredictably that WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart can laugh about now, but also one he hopes the event has moved past with its relocation to Bally’s and Paris for this year and beyond.

“We should never have a rain delay on the Las Vegas Strip,” Stewart said last week in a Bally’s conference room right outside one of the main playing areas of the 2022 WSOP. “There’s been a lot of upkeep here, but it just goes to show you don’t know everything that can go wrong. You just prepare the best you can.”

The 2022 WSOP kicked off Tuesday at the dual new venues with the first two of 88 scheduled events for poker’s biggest prize — the WSOP championship bracelet. Action will run through July 21 in what Stewart is confident will wind up as the biggest WSOP of all-time in terms of participation.

In his 17 years with the WSOP, Stewart has overseen several pivotal moments. Those include the advent of the “November Nine” Main Event final table to appeal to a larger television audience in 2008, the introduction of legalized online poker with WSOP.com in 2013 and the addition of several lower buy-in tournaments to increase the WSOP player pool by tens of thousands over recent years.

This year’s move will be every bit as significant as those examples, if not moreso, in continuing to build up the WSOP. We caught up with Stewart a few days before the start of the WSOP for a wide-ranging conversation about all of it.

Read the interview below.

Not only is the World Series of Poker changing venues, but it’s doing it on a short timetable with last year’s event having just wrapped up in November. How much of a challenge has it been working with four fewer months of lead time than you’ve ever had before?

It’s been a challenge, but a challenge we’re happy to take on. It’s important for us to get back to the traditional time window. Summertime is poker time. It feels a lot more natural. We wanted to be able to execute an event last year, we knew it was important, but it was such a strange set of circumstances with COVID and everything else. It’s been stressful but we have a large, capable team that has been on top of it. I think what’s been really fortunate is (Bally’s/Paris Vice President and General Manager) Jason Gregorec and his team really want to host the event. They understand the impact it had for the Rio, so they’ve been very proactive in partnering with us so it’s not a burden only on our team.

What’s been the hardest part?

We were very concerned at the outset that we may not have the ability to execute the WSOP to our vision and expectation because of staffing but we became particularly excited and energized once we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re now better equipped than we’ve ever been and that is such a relieving feeling.

It looks like you’ve taken the relocation as an opportunity to expand and make everything bigger. Was that always part of the plan?

We ran into multiple occasions at the Rio where we ran out of tables. Few people saw it, but we would have to get into the scheduling and say, ‘Can we actually run that event and this event concurrently? Will we not have enough chairs?’ We don’t feel like we’ll ever have to have capacity strain again. We’re now in a position where we feel like we can execute what the product is today. The WSOP in 2022 is completely different than the WSOP in 2005 when it started at the Rio.

Was the Bally’s ongoing rebrand into the Horseshoe — harkening back to the first 33 years of the WSOP at Binion’s Horseshoe downtown — a coincidence or masterplan?

The WSOP was part of the cornerstone of the efforts to rebrand the Horseshoe. It was knowing it would be the longtime home of the World Series of Poker. I think this year, for these branding situations, still referring to it as Bally’s is a little unfortunate but that’s such a blip in the long-term timeline of being here for hopefully the next couple decades.

You’ve tried to plan out every detail, but what’s the biggest concern with masses of players still to show up?

If they’ll understand the pathway from one venue to the other, if they’ll find the parking situation cumbersome. It’s just guest satisfaction for me. Change is tough on anyone, and poker players knew the setup at the Rio like the back of their hand.

What’s kept you at the WSOP for 17 years?

I’ve loved having these new chapters and being able to see it expand. I really truly believe that the brightest days of poker and the World Series of Poker are ahead of us. There’s just so much more to accomplish, and I still love it.

Vice President/former Tournament Director Jack Effel has been alongside you the whole way. What’s made this pair's partnership in guiding the event work?

We have different styles and try to play to our own strengths. I hope it’s a mutual respect that I’ll manage the brand and the macro things, and he is really a wiz at operational details. I can’t imagine partnering with anyone but Jack. I really believe he is the best poker man in the business. We’re almost like the parents of this baby, and we both truly care about its future. That’s kind of sacrilege because this will always be Jack Binion’s baby but 17 years is a good amount of time.

What’s your most proud accomplishment over those 17 years?

The separation that we’ve had from everything else in the industry. When we started, some people confused us with the World Poker Tour. Now it’s just unquestioned if you look at statistics, there’s the World Series of Poker and then everything else. I think having a hand in that makes me very proud, but honestly, the best thing is when I see someone win a bracelet and they care so much. They’re moved to tears or are really celebrating that moment with their family or friends, that we’ve made the World Series of Poker mean more to players is what I’m really proud of.

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