WPT event cancelled due to COVID cases rising

The bestbet Jacksonville festival has been postponed after Florida has become the epicentre of new COVID cases.

More bad news for the prospects of live poker in the USA after a really positive start to the year. 

The World Poker Tour event this month in Jacksonville has been cancelled due to rising COVID cases in Florida. It was set to feature a $5,000 Main Event with a $1 million guarantee on August 27. 

The bestbet poker room in Florida confirmed the postponement last night:

With the resurgence of COVID-19 in our community and around the country, senior management has decided to postpone the upcoming @WPT bestbet Scramble, including all preliminary events and series satellites. bestbet will continue to operate under its normal business hours. pic.twitter.com/1NNQDZaOIF

— bestbet Jacksonville (@bestbet_jax) August 2, 2021

Florida has become the epicentre of new COVID cases after reporting record single cases and hospitalisatiions last week. Masks are not currently mandated in the State and 57% of the population has received at last one dose of vaccine. 

The World Poker Tour had been thriving in 2021 with some of the biggest fields it has ever boasted due to pent up demand. Now this is looking like another bad omen for the prospects of a busy and normal World Series of Poker, which now looks like it will be a smaller-than-usual affair with mandatory masks and few travelling players from overseas. 

Would you travel for live poker right now? Let us know in the comments: