Will the WSOP be a record breaker?

With record numbers in US tournaments, vaccines rolling out and mask mandates being lifted, will the WSOP Main Event be the biggest ever?

Things are finally starting to look positive for the prospects of live poker, at least if you are in the United States. It seems the decision to postpone the World Series of Poker until September will pay off as by then the action at the Rio will look close to normal.

It could even be, quite possibly, one of the biggest WSOPs in history.

So far just about every major live tournament in the US has broken some sort of record for the size of the field. The World Poker Tour has broken several of its own records in 2021, including the biggest field in the tours history. 

The Wynn has also announced a $10 million guaranteed tournament for next month which appears to be ready to eat up some of this demand for bricks and mortar poker.

No doubt this is pent up demand from over a year no live poker pretty much anywhere in the world. These records were broken while everyone had to wear masks and plexiglass was wedged between the players.

No masks in September?

So pent up demand is perhaps the biggest driver of what could be a record year, but another milestone was passed this month. Last week the CDC announced that anyone in the US who has had both vaccination shots would be allowed to no longer wear masks or socially distance.

It was remarkable that 2,482 players attended that WPT event wearing masks and sat between plexiglass. There are many people for whom wearing the masks was just too unpleasant to even venture into live poker. I am one of them, I have no issue wearing the masks but I can’t really stand the thought of wearing one for several hours at a time, so I have not bothered to play live poker when it has been allowed mostly because I don’t want to wear a mask that long.

By September Vegas should be up to 100% capacity and mask free for vaccinated people, so that could lead to a huge field ready to celebrate the end of lockdown.

Will vaccines lead the way?

There are a lot of arguments against, however. America might be ready but the rest of the world may not be in time. Vaccine rollout has varied from country to country and there will be players who would love to go to the WSOP but are not allowed to because of their vaccination status.

At this stage somebody would mention the economy and how so many people will not have the same disposable income they had because of lockdown’s impact on their finances. I am not sure that is too much of a concern for the WSOP. The poker world often seems to thrive in tough economic periods and there is a lot of evidence more money has been saved per household in the last 12 months than any other time in recent history. I'd be more worried about the price of Bitcoin hurting the numbers at the WSOP than anything COVID related. 

The big thing the WSOP, and the world, has to worry about is some sort of second wave of COVID coming after most people have been vaccinated. So far the vaccines have been working against new variants of COVID and it really does feel like this is the start of the end of the nightmare.

Will it be the biggest WSOP in history? I don’t think so. But I do think it will be a huge series with numbers similar to what we have seen in recent memory and perhaps a festival that will be remembered fondly for years to come.

Will we see a record breaking WSOP? Let us know in the comments: