What new stops should the EPT add in 2025?
There are currently only two confirmed European Poker Tour stops in 2025 so far - they need to find some more soon, suggests Barry Carter.
A bittersweet end to 2024 for the European Poker Tour, in the same month they host two record-breaking fields at EPT Prague they find themselves starting 2025 with just two festivals in the calendar.
Monte Carlo and Barcelona are the only two confirmed events next year for the prestigious tour, after Cyprus and Prague were excluded from the schedule announcement and Paris was cancelled last week. The rumours are that Prague is no longer viable as a destination due to regulatory concerns in the Czech Republic.
The hopes are that Paris could be rescheduled later in the year if the French Government can provide clarity to the poker clubs in the capital. However, either way it would appear that the EPT needs to find some new destinations, fast.
Once the most prestigious tour on the circuit, the EPT is now lagging behind the World Poker Tour and the WSOP. Hosting just two events in 2025 would not be acceptable to PokerStars or the players.
In the grand scheme of things there is not much time to prepare, so established destinations with a strong poker following are a must.
London & Dublin?
My immediate thoughts are Dublin and London provide low-hanging fruit here. There has only been one previous EPT Dublin and Irish poker has a good infrastructure. PokerStars have recently become a major sponsor of the Irish Open in April.
I think a perfect time would be for them to tag an EPT Dublin onto the International Poker Open in October (which also was PokerStars sponsored in 2024) which is around the same time as EPT Cyprus would have been.
London also seems like an easy win, it's easy to get to, there are lots of things for people to do away from the tables and a huge number of professional poker players already live there because of the favourable gambling tax situation in the UK.
Sanremo looks like a place the EPT could return to. It's been a long time since they were last there and Sanremo has hosted both a WSOP-C and WPT Prime event in 2024.
In terms of new destinations, Slovakia springs to mind. Bratislava has hosted a number of fun-looking festivals in recent years and everyone I know who has played there loves it.
I hope the EPT sees this unfortunate situation as an opportunity as there are so many great places in Europe to visit and play poker. It would be incredibly sad to see just two EPT stops in 2025.
Where else should the EPT go in 2025? Let us know in the comments:
