If you’re in Tennessee and looking for a guide to the best legal poker sites, you’ve found the right place. This WPT.com guide aims to clarify the legal status of online poker in Tennessee, and direct Tennessee poker players to the safest, most reputable poker sites. Sweepstakes poker is currently the only legal form of online poker available in the Volunteer State. The top sweepstakes poker room offering access for Tennessee players is ClubWPT. Read on for more on how that platform works and how to win cash and prizes at ClubWPT. Traditional real-money poker sites currently aren’t legal in Tennessee. The only way to play legal online poker in the Volunteer State is via sweepstakes poker sites like ClubWPT. Online sports betting is the only form of online gambling that’s legal in Tennessee at this time. Sweepstakes gaming falls under a different legal category than online gambling, which allows sweepstakes poker rooms like ClubWPT to operate legally in the state. If full-scale, real-money poker games were to go online in Tennessee, that would likely happen as part of a measure that would bring both online casino games and online poker to the state. The passage of such a measure doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon, however. Tennessee poker enthusiasts are still in luck though. ClubWPT offers sweepstakes tournaments where cash and prizes are on the line. The prizes include WPT Voyage Cruise packages, “Passports” to World Poker Tour live events, and more. In 2018, the US government overturned an act known as PASPA, (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act). PASPA declared sports betting illegal across the US, with a couple of exceptions (including Nevada). The fall of PASPA brought forth a new era of online gambling across the nation. All US states now have the option to legalize online sports betting. States can also legalize online poker and online casinos. More than half of US states have legalized online sports betting, but only a handful have legalized online poker and casinos. Only a handful of states currently offer access to legal online poker. These real-money online poker sites are licensed and regulated by state gaming regulation agencies. If youre in one of the 40+ states without regulated online poker, you still have the opportunity to play online poker for cash and prizes. Sweepstakes poker sites are legal in most US states, including Tennessee. As mentioned, ClubWPT is the top choice for legal sweepstakes poker in Tennessee. While ClubWPT doesn’t offer real-money poker games in the traditional sense, you can win substantial cash and prizes in the sweepstakes tournaments offered on the site. Read on for an overview of how ClubWPT works and what prizes it has to offer. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes poker platform owned by the World Poker Tour. Players in 36 states (including Tennessee) can compete for cash and prizes in the sweepstakes games at ClubWPT. Tennessee players will find two kinds of games at ClubWPT, including free-to-play (Play Chips) games and sweepstakes games. The free-to-play games are available in all US states. These games offer the opportunity to sharpen your poker skills with “Play Chips” (i.e. no monterary risk involved). You’ll also find free-to-play online casino games at ClubWPT. The sweepstakes tournaments at ClubWPT are available via monthly subscription. You can access these tournaments by purchasing one of two different subscription tiers. You can also buy an add-on subscription that allows access to special Saturday satellite tournaments. The subscription levels at ClubWPT break down as follows: VIP ($27.95 per month, access to all VIP tournaments) Diamond ($149.95 per month, access to all Diamond and VIP tournaments) Super SATurdays ($100 add-on per month, access to Super SATurdays satellite tournaments) The sweepstakes tournaments at ClubWPT award more than $100,000 in prizes every month. The game formats include Texas Holdem, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. VIP is the most affordable subscription tier at ClubWPT. This subscription level allows access to all tournaments under the VIP tab. VIP-level tournaments use Tournament Points (TP) as the buy-in currency. You start with 500 TP when you sign up for either of ClubWPT’s subscription tiers. Your TP balance reloads each day. Tournaments in the VIP tier award TP, cash, and prizes. A typical VIP tournament looks like this: Tournament Name: $1,000 Mountain Buy-In: 400TP Prize Pool: $1,000 USD + 202,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $150 USD + 2,000 TP The VIP level also includes freeroll tournaments that award TP, cash, and prizes. VIP freerolls don’t require TP to enter. The Diamond subscription unlocks access to all Diamond-tier tournaments, as well as all VIP-tier tournaments. Diamond tournaments award the biggest prizes available at ClubWPT, making it the best overall value among the sweepstakes tiers. While VIP Tournaments require Tournament Points to enter, Diamond subscribers get unlimited entries into Diamond Tournaments. Diamond tournaments are freerolls in a sense (although you do have to pay the monthly subscription to get access). Both VIP and Diamond tournaments award cash and prizes to tournament winners. The cash and prizes on the line are substantially larger in Diamond tournaments, however. A typical Diamond Tournament looks like this: Tournament Name: $5,000 Cash Guarantee Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $5,000 USD + 541,000 TP Guaranteed First Place: $1,000 USD + 5,000 TP Diamond tournaments also offer opportunities to win “Passports” into World Poker Tour live events. The biggest tournaments in this tier award cash and TP throughout the payout ladder, with a WPT live event package as the top prize. For example, the following Diamond Tournament awarded a WPT Prime Passport (travel package and entry fee for any tournament on the WPT Prime schedule) as the first-place prize: Tournament Name: $2,500 WPT Prime Championship Passport + $500 Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $3,000 USD + 467,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $2,500 WPT Prime Passport + 5,000 TP Diamond subscribers get access to both the Diamond and the VIP tier, and Tournament Points earned in Diamond tournaments can be used in VIP tournaments. CLUBWPT AD The biggest event on the ClubWPT tournament schedule is the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge. The details for this special tournament are as follows: Tournament Name:$125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge Buy-In: Entries must qualify through other ClubWPT events Prize Pool: $125,000 USD First Place: WPT Event Package $12,000 The first-place prize for this tournament is a $12,000 package that sends you to the annual WPT World Championship in Las Vegas. You can only qualify for the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge through other tournaments on ClubWPT. Most of the tournaments that allow you to qualify are in the Diamond tier. ClubWPT doesn’t operate as a traditional real-money online poker room. ClubWPT offers online poker under a sweepstakes gaming model. Purchase a monthly subscription to ClubWPT, and you get access to poker tournaments that award cash and prizes. You dont deposit money or directly compete for cash at ClubWPT, however. ClubWPT awards more than $100,000 in cash and prizes every month. ClubWPT’s biggest tournament, the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge, awards $125,000 in total cash and prizes. The first-place prize for the Championship Challenge is a $12,000 WPT Event Package that sends the winner to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December. You can sign up for ClubWPT from anywhere in the U.S. You can only play the sweepstakes tournaments for cash and prizes if youre in one of the 36 eligible states. If you want to play online poker in Tennessee, you’re in luck! Tennessee is on the list of states that allow access to the sweepstakes poker games at ClubWPT. Heres how to sign up for a ClubWPT account: Click the sign-up link in any of the ClubWPT ads in this article. Click the green Sign-Up button at the top right of the ClubWPT home page Enter a valid email, choose a username and password, and click Continue Enter your name, DoB, and physical address, and choose a security question and answer. On the next screen, choose your subscription and your payment method. The free-to-play cash games and tournaments are open to all U.S. players, without a subscription required. The VIP and Diamond tournaments are available through monthly subscriptions. If you want to play the sweepstakes tournaments in these tiers, you must be located in one of the 36 eligible states when you play. If youre located in Tennessee, youre in luck, as the ClubWPT sweepstakes games are available to you. CLUBWPT AD ClubWPT doesnt operate as a traditional real-money poker site. ClubWPTs subscription-based tournaments award cash and prizes under a sweepstakes gaming model. Sweepstakes gaming sites are legal in more than 40 U.S. states. As a sweepstakes poker site, ClubWPT is classified under a different legal category than a real-money poker site. At a traditional real-money poker site, players deposit money and directly compete for other players’ money in cash games and tournaments. For example, you might deposit $1,000 and put $200 down on a cash game table. A withdrawal from a real-money poker site involves a direct cash transfer of some kind. At ClubWPT, players can compete for cash and prizes, but you dont directly deposit or withdraw cash at any time. All prizes awarded in ClubWPTs tournaments are sweepstakes prizes. Those prizes include sweepstakes credits that can be redeemed for cash, WPT Voyage Cruise luxury packages, and entries to WPT Main Tour and WPT Prime events. If youve searched for a real-money online poker site that you can access from Tennessee, you may have come across a few sites that appear to be legitimate. These sites might appear as legal online poker rooms. Its important to note, however, that there are many offshore online gambling sites that operate in the United States illegally . Consider three reasons that you should avoid offshore/illegal gambling sites: Payment options are generally quite limited at an offshore poker site. Many of these illegal poker rooms essentially only facilitate deposits and withdrawals using cryptocurrency. If you cant deposit US dollars in your account at an online poker room, thats generally not a good sign. If you do manage to make a deposit with a bank account or credit/debit card, the transaction will often appear on your bank statement as a purchase from an shell company youve never heard of. Offshore gambling sites try to hide the true nature of a deposit, trying to deceive banks into letting the deposit go through. When you purchase a subscription at ClubWPT, the transaction clearly shows up on your bank statement as a purchase from ClubWPT. ClubWPT, and any online poker site backed by the World Poker Tour, operates with a vested interest in protecting your personal and financial information. If you give your bank account, credit card, or Social Security number to an offshore poker site, theres no telling where or with whom that information might end up. If you attempt to withdraw your funds from an offshore poker site, youre requesting money from an illegal operation. These sites operate outside of US laws, and have no legal obligation to send you your money when you request a withdrawal. If you end up on the wrong end of a denied or delayed withdrawal, you have no legal way to file a complaint and get your money. Offshore poker sites operate illegally. When you deposit at an offshore gambling site, you might not ever get your money back. Offshore poker sites are notorious for bots (aka computer-automated poker players), collusion between players, multi-accounting, and ghosting. If you start playing online poker at these sites, the games are quite often rife with illegal and unethical activit, as these sites have little incentive to punish bad actors. Offshore gambling sites are in the business of taking deposits from players. You cant expect a high level of player security once they have your money. Yes. While real-money online poker isn’t legal in Tennessee, you can play poker legally at sweepstakes poker sites. The best sweepstakes poker site currently available in Tennessee is ClubWPT. The sweepstakes tournaments at ClubWPT award substantial cash and prizes. No. You won’t find any casinos in Tennessee, whether you’re looking for land-based casinos or online casinos. If the Volunteer State ever changes its stance on casino gaming, that could pave the way for live poker rooms to open in the state. For now, the best (and only) way to play poker legally is at sweepstakes poker sites like ClubWPT. ClubWPT is the best sweepstakes poker room available to Tennessee players. While ClubWPT doesn’t function like a traditional real-money poker site, you can win cash and prizes in the sweepstakes games available on the site. ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments are accessible through monthly subscriptions. The prizes up for grabs in these tournaments include sweepstakes credits that can be redeemed for cash, entries into World Poker Tour live events, travel packages to WPT Voyage cruises, and more. Yes. Tennessee is one of 36 US states in which ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments are legal. Anyone in the US can sign up for a ClubWPT account and compete in the free-to-play (aka Play Chips) games. You must be located in one of the eligible 36 states to play in the sweepstakes tournaments. You don’t have to live in one of those 36 states to play the sweepstakes games, but you must be located in one of them (such as Tennessee) while you play. No. Offshore poker platforms operate illegally in the US, and should be avoided. Your money and personal information could be at risk if you deposit at an offshore poker site. The integrity of the games at these sites is often questionable as well. The best bet for aspiring online poker players in Tennessee is ClubWPT. Online sports betting is currently the only form of online gambling that’s legal in Tennessee. Sweepstakes poker sites are the only platforms offering legal online poker games in the Volunteer State. CLUBWPT AD There is no purchase necessary to play on ClubWPT. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For more information regarding events, including how to qualify and location eligibility, visitClubWPT.com Ensure your jurisdiction allows play on WPT Global. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

Poer is math. Piles and piles of math. Those are the very first words you hear in the new poker-themed feature-length action/thriller Dead Money. And for the next two minutes, our hero, via voice-over, breaks down the language of modern poker for his audience. References to ranges, counting outs, opponent betting patterns, and ROI. Its not just a summary lesson in poker that the first scene offers, its also a pair of promises – the first is that the game of poker is going to be a central character to the story, and the second, is that theyll get it right. And for the most part, Dead Money delivers. The story is a simple one (no major plot spoilers here), Andy, played by star Emile Hirsch, is a private cash game grinder on a downswing, looking to turn his fortunes around. When the high-stakes underground game hes playing in gets robbed at gunpoint, the robbers drive off with more than six figures in cash, leaving Andy with less than zero. But when an opportunistic Andy stumbles back upon the stolen cash, he grabs it and ultimately looks to run it up by playing in a series of private games as the original thieves come looking for the money. As Andy, Hirsch is confident and convincing. While the character of Andy doesnt actually do too much in the movie to ask you to align with him, Hirsch uses his own on-screen charisma to bring you in and have his back. Hirsch plays Andy knowing vibes of a studied poker player right down to the emotional detachment of winning and losing. And when, at his lowest, he spits out the battle cry of degens on a downswing – one solid heater is all I need and I am up and walking. – you almost believe that he will. The reason it feels authentic is that Hirsch did his homework by walking the walk. He attended private games, put in time studying, and even twice played on Hustler Casino Live, where he won more than $17,000 in a $50/$100 $100BBA game in his last appearance. Dead Money comes out September 13th. If you haven’t heard of it yet, check this out. I saw so many insane underground games and underworlds, filled with degenerates of all kinds. After the movie I was caught in the throes of a full blown gambling addiction- that’s how you pic.twitter.com/udvt5FRjU9 Emile Hirsch (@EmileHirsch) August 27, 2024 The script, written by Josh Wilcox who also serves as the poker consultant, doesnt speak down to its poker-playing audience. Up top, it assumes that youve not only seen the 1998 cult classic Rounders, but you know what it means if you cant spot the fish at the table. As a whole the poker in the movie feels authentic, (wellauthentic for a movie) and although sometimes the table talk can feel cliche I dont gamble. I play poker., the quips often emulate something you might actually hear if you were playing yourself. (You got a jack?, Is a jack good?) The film is bookended by two lengthy poker scenes with a series of escalating home games in between. Its the kind of poker montages that let the viewers know that it gets real-world poker. Youre not going to catch quads into a straight flush here. Sure, theres some theatrics, an over-the-top moment or two, the hero pulling off a well-timed bluff, but its just enough to add some drama and raise the stakes. The fast-paced direction in the poker scenes never has you lingering on a spot for too long. The hole cards, the all-ins, and the dragging of the pot give you the rush you are looking for. The core supporting characters all felt well-lived in, including Oscar-nominated actor Jackie Earle Haleys portrayal of the shotgun-wielding dimwit Wendel, and the archetypes seated at each poker table felt familiar. This includes a perfectly cast Hustler Casino Live star Alan Keating who pops up in a mid-stakes game at a country club just in time to get out on the greens for a prop bet. Its not all poker, of course, with a thorough line about the money, where it came from, and what criminals will do to get it back driving all the action. Theres a significant amount of violence that could turn you off, but also they use the passe poker term donkey multiple times which, to some, may be even more egregious. In the end, Dead Money may not be revolutionary as far as action/thriller movies go, but it does feel fast-paced and is pretty enjoyable. In terms of its portrayal of poker, though, Wilcox clearly knew what he was writing about. When paired with the direction of Luc Walpoth, poker fans will likely hold “Dead Money” in high regard in the pantheon of poker movies. “Dead Money” is out now on digital platforms.

If you want to learn how to play poker, you found the right place! This WPT.com article serves as a guide for learning how to play poker for beginners. Poker is one of the world’s most popular card games, with many variants and ways to play. Games like Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, and Five Card Draw all fall under the broader category of poker. The poker variants listed all play quite differently from each other, but share some basic concepts that apply to almost all poker games. This guide covers the basics of poker, and applies to many of the most popular poker games. No matter what game you want to play, you’ll do well to add all of these basic concepts to your level of poker knowledge. CLUBWPT AD WPT GLOBAL AD Before you dive into poker, it’s crucial to understand the rules of the specific poker game you want to play. Texas Hold’em, for example, plays very differently than Seven Card Stud. Most poker games share many of the same basic poker rules, however. Many of the world’s most popular poker variants share the following components: Poker games (with a few exceptions) use the standard 52-card deck. The 52 playing cards are separated into cards ranked ace through deuce, with the ace as the highest card and the deuce (aka the two) as the lowest card. The ace can also act as the lowest card. From highest to lowest, the card values look like this: The deck includes 13 different ranks total. Each of the 13 ranks come in four different suits: With 13 ranks and four suits for each rank, the deck adds up to 52 cards. If you were to separate the 52 cards by rank, that would look something like this: Note that most player card decks include at least one Joker (wild card), but poker games rarely use Jokers during gameplay. Whether it’s Texas Hold’em, stud poker, draw poker, or even video poker, most poker variants use the same system of poker hand rankings. These rankings determine which player wins when two (or more) poker hands go head to head. Most poker games task the player with making the best five-card hand possible, and these rankings are based on five-card hands. From strongest to weakest, the poker hand rankings look like this: A royal flush consists of A-K-Q-J-T of all the same suit. is an example of a royal flush. A straight flush is five sequential cards that are all the same suit. In other words, a straight flush is both a flush and a straight at the same time. is an example of a straight flush. A four-of-a-kind hand is made of four cards of the same rank. Examples of four-of-a-kind include four aces, four kings, four nines, four fours, etc, A full house consists of three of a kind and a pair in the same five-card hand. Examples of a full house could include,, and . Five cards of all the same suit make a flush in poker. Examples of flushes could include , , and . A straight is made of five sequential cards. The five cards in the straight don’t have to be of the same suit. Examples of a straight could include , , and . A three-of-a-kind hand consists of three of the same-ranking card. Examples of three of a kind could include Qc/pc, and . Much like the name suggests, a two-pair hand is made when you hold two distinct pairs in the same five-card hand. Examples of two-pair hands could include , and . A one-pair hand (or just a “pair”) is made when you have two cards of the same ranking in your five-card hand. A pair is the lowest-ranking made hand you can have in poker. In a battle of two or more one-pair hands, the highest pair wins. When you don’t make a pair or better with your five cards, you’re hand is known as a high-card hand. A hand like is known as “ace-high,” a hand like is known as “king-high,” and so on. When two high-card hands face off, the hand with the highest-ranking high card wins. CLUBWPT AD WPT GLOBAL AD Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and several other poker games use a betting system with a button and blinds. The blinds are mandatory bets that go into the pot before each hand starts. These bets ensure that at least some amount of money is on the line in every hand. When you look at a Texas Hold’em or Omaha poker table, you’ll see a setup that looks something like this: The dealer button, small blind, and big blind rotate one player to the left after each hand. The small blind is always on the immediate left of the big blind, and the dealer button is on the immediate left of the small blind. The amount of the small blind and big blind are determined by the stakes of the game in cash games, or by level in poker tournaments. For example, if you’re playing a $1/$2 No-Limit Hold’em cash game on WPT Global, the small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2. Those blind amounts don’t change at any time in the game. If you’re playing a tournament, the blinds begin at a certain amount, then increase in time intervals called levels. For instance, the annual WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas start with the blinds at 100/200. All players begin with 40,000 starting chips. The blinds increase every 40 minutes. At Level 2, the blinds increase to 200/300, and Level 3 the blinds increase to 200/400, and so on. Some poker games use antes as mandatory bets, either in place of the blinds or along with the blinds. Many tournaments include a big blind ante equal to the amount of the big blind in each hand. So if the blinds are listed as 100/200/200, the 100 represents the amount of the small blind, the second number (200) represents the amount of the big blind, and the third number (also 200) is the amount of the big blind ante. Each pot begins with 500 chips in the middle if the blinds and antes are at 100/200/200. Some cash games also use an ante. You’ll see antes in use if you play Seven Card Stud, for example. If you’re playing at an online poker site, or you look at the cash game waitlist at a casino poker room, you’ll see notations like NLHE, PLO, Limit, etc. Most poker games play under one of the following betting structures: A brief overview of these betting structures follows below: Under No-Limit betting rules, a player can bet all of their chips at any time during any part of a hand. No-Limit Texas Hold’em is the most popular form of poker in the world. When you see a notation like NLHE or NLH, that denotes a game of Texas Hold’em played under No-Limit betting rules. Whatever amount of chips you have in front of you at a given time, you can bet that entire amount at any point in the hand. For instance, if you’re in the WPT Prime Championship, you could bet all 40,000 of your starting chips in the very first hand if you wanted to. Most Texas Hold’em games played at live poker rooms and online poker sites are played under No-Limit rules. Some other games use No-Limit betting structure as well. Under Pot-Limit rules, the maximum allowed bet or raise at any time is equal to the amount of the pot. Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) is the most popular poker game that uses Pot-Limit betting rules, by far. PLO is the second-most popular poker game in the world, trailing only No-Limit Hold’em. You can play many poker variants as Pot-Limit games, but the two most common you’ll see are Omaha and Texas Hold’em. Fixed-Limit (or simply Limit) games play with preset limits on the maximum amount you can bet or raise. Stud games are almost exclusively played as Limit games, but you’ll sometimes see Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and other poker games played as Limit games as well. The “limits” in a Limit game are determined by the stakes of the game. For example, you might see a listing for $4/$8 Limit Hold’em at a poker room. Generally speaking, a $4/$8 game allows a maximum of $4 for a bet or raise in the first two betting rounds, and a max of $8 in the final two betting rounds. The maximum number of raised per round is usually four. After four bets/raises have occured in a betting round, other players can only call after that. The overarching category of “poker” can include hundreds of games. For the purposes of this article, the following brief explanations cover the most common poker variants you’ll see at the poker room. Texas Hold’em is the most-played poker game in the world. No-Limit Hold’em (Texas Hold’em played with No-Limit betting rules) is the game at the center of the most prestigious poker tournaments in the world, including on the World Poker Tour. If you’re just getting into poker, Texas Hold’em is a great game to learn how to play. You’ll find plenty of games of Texas Hold’em running at most poker rooms at any time. CLUBWPT AD WPT GLOBAL AD Omaha is similar to Texas Hold’em, but with some key differences: The requirement of using exactly two hole cards and three community cards can trip up a player who’s used to playing exclusively Texas Hold’em. Pot-Limit Omaha (Omaha played under Pot-Limit betting rules) is the second-most popular poker game in the world. You can also find Limit Omaha, and Omaha Hi-Lo (where each pot is split between the best high hand and the best low hand) at many poker rooms. Big-O, yet another Omaha variant, is played with five hole cards. Seven Card Stud was at one time the most popular poker game in the world. Stud plays quite differently than Hold’em and Omaha: Seven Card Stud is the most common Stud variant, with Five Card Stud a distant second. Some of the other poker games you might see at the poker room (particularly at live poker rooms) include: As you branch out as a poker player, you’ll encounter far more variants than what’s included in this guide. ClubWPT presents a great option for players looking to learn the game online. You can play for free at ClubWPT, or purchase a monthly subscription. The monthly subscription allows access to tournaments that award cash and prizes, including entries into World Poker Tour live events. Poker is a game of skill. While luck certainly plays a role in the short term in poker, in the long term good players will always win more than bad players. Poker in general is relatively easy to learn. The best players in the world, however, have spent many thousands of hours studying poker strategy to get to where they are in the game. Texas Hold’em, as World Poker Tour legend Mike Sexton once said, takes “only minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.” Five Card Draw is quite possibly the easiest poker game to learn. Each player gets five cards, there’s one round of discards, and the player with the best five-card hand wins. The most practical game to learn, however, is Texas Hold’em. It’s relatively simple to learn, and is played all over the world. Yes. ClubWPT is a great online poker site for players looking to learn how to play poker on their own. ClubWPT offers free-to-play poker games, as well as subscription-based tournaments that award cash and prizes. The prizes at stake in ClubWPT’s tournaments include entries to WPT live events, WPT Voyage Cruise packages, and more. CLUBWPT AD WPT GLOBAL AD ** There is no purchase necessary to play on ClubWPT. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For more information regarding events, including how to qualify and location eligibility, visitClubWPT.com Ensure your jurisdiction allows play on WPT Global. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

Debuting in 2022 as part of the Season XX schedule, WPT Australia represented a significant moment on multiple fronts. It was the first World Poker Tour Main Tour stop to take place outside of the United States in over two-and-a-half years, and locally, it represented a cresting wave as poker’s resurgence in the region hit a new high water mark. After a few years of dormancy and uncertainty, it appears that a poker community that has some of the deepest roots in the world is officially back. Major poker events in Australia can be traced all the way back to the late 1990s in Melbourne, with the first-ever Australasian Poker Championships held in 1998. The A$1,000 buy-in main event, which was played in a Limit Hold’em format ala the early Party Poker Millions, awarded a first-place prize of just over $15,000 that year. By 2006, when that festival was officially renamed the Aussie Millions, prizes crossed the $1 million threshold, a revolutionary $100,000 buy-in mark was crossed, and Australia had officially become a poker hotbed. Everything exploded in the year after Joe Hachem won the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event for $7.5 million, shining a bright light on Australian poker players for the world to see. One year later, Hachem added a WPT title when he won the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Coupled with the rise of online poker worldwide, and the appeal of Australia as a destination for players around the world, and for a stretch the Aussie Millions became the biggest poker event in the world that didn’t fall within the boundaries of the World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker or European Poker Tour. It continued this way for the better part of 15 years, as poker in the region thrived and fans around the world got to know names like Tony G, Jeff Lisandro, James Obst, and Michael Addamo, among many others. Everything continued in a similarly successful fashion until 2020. Shortly after the 2020 Aussie Millions, everything shut down due to COVID and Australia was essentially cut off from the rest of the world. Crown Resorts, the operator of Aussie Millions host Crown Melbourne and several other casinos, found itself mired in legal and financial woes amounting to A$700 million in fines for a variety of violations including skirting anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. Even as the country’s flagship event disappeared, the appetite for poker in Australia remained. On a regional level, the pub poker scene thrived, with freerolls and buy-ins as low as $20 for weekly events. WPT League, the official poker league partner of the World Poker Tour, held their annual WPT League Championship in Sydney this past June with the A$675 Main Event attracting 784 entries to cap off the 12-event festival schedule. Another organization, the Australian Poker League operates events on a broad scale of buy-ins and field sizes as well, and has risen to a point where its signature yearly event, the APL Million Gold Coast, has become a can’t-miss tournament event. Hosted at the Southport Sharks events center in Queensland, the most recent APL Million Gold Coast Main Event drew an astounding 3,160 players for its A$1,500 Main Event, with a first-place prize of $464,363. In the middle of this poker resurgence, especially in the Gold Coast region, has been the World Poker Tour. Starting with WPTDeepstacks in 2019, and followed by WPT Prime in 2021 and Main Tour in 2022, Gold Coast has become one of the signature stops on the WPT calendar. On Friday, the World Poker Tour kicks off its return to Gold Coast for its third-ever Main Tour stop at The Star Gold Coast. The A$8,000 buy-in will offer one of the richest poker prizes to be won in Australia in 2024, and within a week of action, someone will join David Tang and Richard Lee as champions of WPT Australia – joining a proud lineage of Australian champions that appears likely to grow even stronger in the years to come.

Arizona hosts a vibrant poker scene, but the legality of online poker rooms in the Grand Canyon State is a bit unclear. This WPT.com guide to playing online poker in Arizona aims to clarify the state’s online poker laws, and direct Arizona players to the best legal poker sites. ClubWPT is the top legal poker site currently available in Arizona. ClubWPT doesn’t operate as a traditional real money poker room, but it does offer sweepstakes tournaments with cash and prizes on the line. Read on for more on how to legally play poker online in Arizona, as well as a review of ClubWPT. Online sports betting is currently the only form of real money online gambling legal in Arizona. Federal law allows individual states to choose their own stance toward online gambling. Individual states can legalize online poker, sports betting, and casinos, with the appropriate gaming regulation agency in a given state overseeing all aspects of the industries. More than half of US states have legalized online sports betting. Only and handful of states, however, have legalized online poker and online casinos. Arizona is home to tribal casinos and live poker rooms throughout the state. Full-scale, real money online poker isn’t currently available in the Grand Canyon State, however. Sweepstakes poker sites present the best legal alternative to regulated online poker rooms. Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 states, with Arizona on that list. ClubWPT, the top sweepstakes poker site available in the U.S., offers Arizona players the chance to win cash in sweepstakes tournaments. You can also win prizes like entries into WPT live events, WPT Voyage Cruise packages, and more. US states all have the option to introduce legalized online poker. Online poker laws vary by state. Only eight states currently allow access to regulated online poker sites. If you’re not in one of those states, you (unfortunately) can’t play at any full-scale, legal, real money poker sites. Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 states. Sweepstakes poker sites essentially function as sweepstakes gaming sites with poker as the game. In states without regulated online poker, sweepstakes poker rooms offer the best legal alternative. You don’t directly compete for cash at a sweepstakes poker site, but you can win cash and prizes. All winnings at a site like ClubWPT come in the form of sweepstakes prizes. This puts ClubWPT in a different legal category than a traditional real money poker site. Regulated poker isn’t available in Arizona for now. Your best bet for legal online poker in Arizona is ClubWPT. As mentioned, ClubWPT operates as a legal sweepstakes poker room. Read on for more about how sweepstakes poker works, and what games are available at ClubWPT. ClubWPT offers two kinds of games – free-to-play games (aka Play Chips games) and sweepstakes games. The Play Chips games are available in all 50 states, and give players a great avenue for practicing their poker skills with no purchase necessary and no monetary risk involved. The sweepstakes games are available via monthly subscription, and award cash and prizes. Two different subscription tiers are available for purchase at ClubWPT, along with an add-on subscription allowing access to special Saturday satellite tournaments. The subscription tiers at ClubWPT break down as follows: VIP ($27.95 per month, access to all VIP tournaments) Diamond ($149.95 per month, access to all Diamond and VIP tournaments) Super SATurdays ($100 add-on per month, access to Super SATurdays satellite tournaments) ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments award more than $100,000 in prizes each month. The game formats available in the sweepstakes tournaments include Texas Holdem, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. VIP is the lowest-priced subscription tier at ClubWPT. This subscription level allows access to all tournaments under the VIP tab. VIP tournaments use Tournament Points (TP) as the buy-in currency. You start with 500 TP when you sign up for a subscription, and your TP balance reloads each day. Tournaments in the VIP tier award TP, cash, and prizes. A typical tournament in the VIP tier looks like this: Tournament Name: $1,000 Mountain Buy-In: 400TP Prize Pool: $1,000 USD + 202,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $150 USD + 2,000 TP You’ll also find plenty of freerolls (aka zero TP buy-in tournaments) in this tier, awarding TP, cash, and prizes. A Diamond subscription grants access to all Diamond-tier tournaments, as well as all tournaments in the VIP tier. Diamond tournaments award the biggest prizes available at ClubWPT, and the Diamond level is the best overall value among the sweepstakes tiers. While VIP Tournaments require Tournament Points to enter, Diamond subscribers get unlimited entries into Diamond Tournaments. There’s no buy-in currency required for Diamond Tournaments, which are open for entry on an uncapped basis for subscribers to this tier. These tournaments are freerolls in a sense, although you do have to pay the monthly subscription to get access. Both VIP and Diamond tournaments award cash and prizes to tournament winners. The cash amounts and prizes available are substantially larger in the Diamond tier, however. A typical Diamond Tournament looks like this: Tournament Name: $5,000 Cash Guarantee Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $5,000 USD + 541,000 TP Guaranteed First Place: $1,000 USD + 5,000 TP Youll also find many opportunities to win entry into World Poker Tour live events in Diamond tournaments. Many of the tournaments on this level award cash and TP throughout the payout ladder, with a WPT live event package as the top prize. For example, the following Diamond Tournament awarded a WPT Prime Passport (travel package and entry fee for any WPT Prime tournament) as the first-place prize: Tournament Name: $2,500 WPT Prime Championship Passport + $500 Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers) Prize Pool: $3,000 USD + 467,500 TP Guaranteed First Place: $2,500 WPT Prime Passport + 5,000 TP Keep in mind that Diamond subscribers get access to both the Diamond and the VIP tier, so the TP earned in Diamond tournaments can be used in VIP tournaments. CLUBWPT AD One of the biggest tournaments at ClubWPT is the $125,000 WPT World Championship Chalenge. The details for this special event look like this: Tournament Name: $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge Buy-In: Entries must qualify through other ClubWPT events Prize Pool: $125,000 USD First Place: WPT Event Package $12,000 The first-place prize for this event is a $12,000 package that sends you to the annual WPT World Championship in Las Vegas. This tournament isn’t an open-enrollment event. You can only qualify for it through other tournaments on ClubWPT. Most of the tournaments that allow you to win your way into the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge are in the Diamond tier. ClubWPT does not operate as a traditional real-money online poker site. The platform operates as a sweepstakes gaming site, running poker tournaments that award cash and prizes. You dont deposit money or directly compete for cash at ClubWPT. The cash and prizes on the line are substantial, however. ClubWPT awards more than $100,000 in cash and prizes every month. The flagship tournament on ClubWPT, the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge, awards $125,000 in total cash and prizes alone. The grand prize for this tournament is a $12,000 WPT Event Package that sends the winner to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December. You can join ClubWPT from anywhere in the U.S. Keep in mind, however, that you can only play the sweepstakes games for cash and prizes if youre in one of the 36 eligible states. Arizona is on the list of states that allow access to the sweepstakes poker games at ClubWPT. Heres how to sign up for a ClubWPT account: The free-to-play cash games and tournaments are open to all U.S. players, without a subscription required. To play the VIP and Diamond games, you must sign up for a monthly subscription package and must be located in one of the 36 eligible states when you play. If youre located in Arizona, youre in luck, as the ClubWPT sweepstakes games are accessible to you (as long as youre physically located in Arizona while you play). CLUBWPT AD ClubWPT doesnt operate as a traditional real-money poker site. The cash and prizes available in the subscription-based tournaments are awarded under a sweepstakes gaming model. Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 U.S. states. Sweepstakes poker rooms like ClubWPT aren’t defined by the same legal category as real-money poker sites. At a traditional real-money poker site, players deposit money and use that money as their stake in cash games and tournaments. When you withdraw winnings from a real-money poker account, that withdrawal involves a direct cash transfer of some kind. At ClubWPT, players can compete for cash and prizes, but direct cash deposits and withdrawals dont happen. All prizes awarded in ClubWPT’s tournaments are sweepstakes prizes. Those prizes include sweepstakes credits that can be redeemed for cash, luxury packages to WPT Voyage cruises, and even seats to WPT Main Tour events. If youre in Arizona and you’ve tried to find a legal online poker site, you might have found a few sites that seem to offer legit online poker games for real money. These sites might appear to give you a legal option for playing poker online. It’s important to note, however, that offshore online poker sites that operate in the United States are doing so illegally . Here are three reasons that Arizona poker players should avoid these illegal online gambling sites: Payment options at an offshore/illegal poker site are often limited. Many offshore gambling sites only allow deposits and withdrawals using cryptocurrency. If you can’t find a way to deposit USD in your account at an online poker room, thats generally not a good sign. If you do get to deposit using a bank account or credit/debit card, that transaction will often show up as a purchase from an online shopping outlet youve never heard of. That cant be good either. When you purchase a subscription at ClubWPT, that transaction clearly shows up on your bank statement as a purchase from ClubWPT. ClubWPT, and any online poker site backed by the World Poker Tour, operates with a keen interest in protecting your personal and financial information. If you give your bank account, credit card, or Social Security number to an offshore poker site, theres no telling where or with whom that information might end up. If you try to withdraw from an offshore poker site, youre requesting money from an operation that has no legal obligation to send you your money. If you find yourself on the bad end of a denied withdrawal, you have no legal recourse to file a complaint and recoup your money. Offshore poker sites operate illegally, and any time you play at such a site, that could be the last time you see your money. Offshore poker sites are often infested with bots (aka computer automated poker players), player collusion, multi-accounting, and ghosting. The games at offshore poker sites are quite frequently rife with illegal and unethical activity, as the sites have little incentive to punish bad actors. Offshore gambling sites are in the business of taking deposits from players. You cant expect much in the way of player security once they have your money. Yes. While full-scale, regulated, real-money poker isnt legal in Arizona, sweepstakes poker sites are legal in the Grand Canyon State. ClubWPT is the best sweepstakes poker site available in Arizona. Arizona players can purchase a monthly subscription and get unlimited access to the sweepstakes tournaments at ClubWPT. These tournaments award cash and prizes, including entries to live World Poker Tour events. Yes. Arizona poker laws allow tribal casinos to offer a full suite of casino games, as well as poker. Arizona is home to several tribal casinos that have live poker rooms. The Grand Canyon State hosts a thriving live poker economy. The only form of online poker that’s legal in Arizona, however, is sweepstakes poker. If you come across an online poker room running real money poker games in AZ, that room is operating illegally. ClubWPT tops the list of the best online poker sites available to Arizona players. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes poker platform, with tournaments that award cash and prizes. You dont directly play with cash at ClubWPT, but you can purchase a monthly subscription and compete for cash and prizes. Some of the prizes up for grabs at ClubWPT’s online poker tournaments include travel packages for WPT Voyage Cruises and “Passports” for events on the live version of the World Poker Tour. Yes. The sweepstakes games at ClubWPT are legal in Arizona. The free-to-play games at ClubWPT are legal in all 50 U.S. states. The sweepstakes games are legal in 36 states, with Arizona as one of those states. No. As mentioned in this guide, you should avoid playing poker or doing any kind of gaming at offshore gambling sites. Your money, banking information and personal information could be at risk at an offshore gambling site, and the integrity of the games can be questionable. Sports betting is the only form of online gambling that’s legal in Arizona. US states have the option to legalize online casino games, online sports betting, and online poker if they wish. Arizona has only legalized online sports betting so far. Sweepstakes poker rooms are legal in the Grand Canyon State, however. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes room and tops the list of the best Arizona poker sites. CLUBWPT AD There is no purchase necessary to play on ClubWPT. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For more information regarding events, including how to qualify and location eligibility, visitClubWPT.com

Stephen Song retreated to his rail, a wry smile across his face. He was heads-up for the 2024 EPT Barcelona title, covering his opponent – respected British tournament pro Andrew Hulme – and the pair had all the chips in the middle. His ace-seven off suit was behind Hulmes pocket eights, but Song ha been running hot all day. So it wasnt a complete shock when the turn brought Song a gutshot straight, delivering him the win and a 1,290,386 ($1.425M) payday – the largest of his career. Song bested a field of 1,975 entries, the fourth-largest in EPT history, according to PokerStars. But for those who have followed Songs career over the past five years, seeing him deep in a large-field event was as much of a surprise as seeing him bink the turn. Song has made a habit of repeatedly fading the field in some of the toughest large-field events on the calendar, earning him a reputation as one of the best on the modern landscape to do so. Feel free to debate whether Song has officially earned a coveted Poker Triple Crown (WPT, EPT, WSOP titles) but wherever you land on that issue, theres no doubt that for each of his major titles, he swam through a sea of would-be sharks to get to shore. In 2019, when won his WSOP gold bracelet in a $1,000 NLHE event for $341,854 (his largest at the time), he was the last player standing in a field of 2,477. His WPT Prime Championship title was won from a field twice that size when he outlasted the 5,430 entries, including runner-up Lara Eisenberg, at Wynn Las Vegas in Season 22 for his previous high score of $712,650. Those are just the top of the resume titles. Throw in there a third-place finish in the 2021 WSOP $1,500 ‘The Closer’ event (1,903 entries), a final table in the 2018 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open (1,244 entries) and finishing in 57th in this years record-setting WSOP Main Event (10,112 entries) – putting him in the top .5% of the field. It was also his second career top-100 finish in the Main Event. Song’s results position him among the most prolific big-field crushers in modern poker history, standing among some of the giants of the game. Joe McKeehen knows something about making a deep run in the Main Event. And having a reputation as an elite big-field crusher. First thing first, the 2015 WSOP Main Event winner took home more than $7.6 million for topping the 6,420-person field. Sure, you could mistakenly claim that anyone who tops the modern Main Event is automatically in this big field crusher category, but youve got to have more than that to make it so. Of course, McKeehen has plenty more: a runner-up finish in the inaugural WSOP Monster Stack for $820,863 (7,862 entries), a third-place finish in the 2018 WSOP Millionaire Maker ($538,276, 7361 entries), and two of his five World Poker Tour final table appearances coming after he outlasted more than 1,000 runners. When it comes to WSOP Main Event winners, you can put Joe Cada in there, too. The 2009 Main Event winner (6,494 entries, $8.5 million) made his second run to the final table nine years later, finishing in fifth place (out of 7,874 entries) for another $2,150,000. Immediately after busting out of the Main Event in 2018, he put $1,500 of his seven-figure payday to work in that years edition of ‘The Closer’ and proceeded to fade another 3,120 entry field to earn his fourth gold bracelet. While he hasnt actually won a WSOP Main Event, a nod to two-time modern-day Main Event final tablist (2009,2017) and longtime pro Antoine Saout from France who made nearly $5.5 million between his third and fifth place finish respectively. Add to that pair of EPT Main Event final tables (2016, 2022) both with more than 1,000 entries, and it feels like Saout can make a run in nearly every important event he enters. Its natural to think about Sin City, the WSOP, and the Main Event as an epicenter when talking about the biggest fields of any calendar year. But dont discount the massive fields that come out in Florida whenever a major tour comes to town. Thats something three-time WPT champion Brian Altman would never do as Altman has made a career devouring the 1K+ fields in Florida. Four of Altmans top-10 all-time scores are from the big fields in Florida including his top prize of $723,008 in the 2015 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open (1,027 runners). When he won the same event in 2020 there were just 843 runners, but his third title came less than a year later in the 1,165-entry field of WPT Tampa Championship. Altman also managed to additional official WPT final tables with more than 1,000 runners in each event. But perhaps one of the closest comp to Songs recent success is that of Andrew Moreno. Like Song, Moreno plays almost exclusively in tournaments with $10,000 buy-ins and under, with a recent outstanding track record in the larger field marquee events. Case in point, his breakout result – a victory chop in the 2021 $10,000 Wynn Millions for $1.46 million in a field of 1,328. One year later to the day, in nearly the exact same spot, Moreno finished as the runner-up in the $3,500 Wynn Championship for another $460K (1,428 entries). This year, Moreno returned to the Wynn and in essentially the same tournament, the $10,400 Wynn Summer Championship, Moreno made another deep run, this time bowing out in 13th out of 1,440 entries. for just under $140,000. And now, to this group of elite big-field crushers, we can safely add Stephen Song. Even before his EPT Barcelona victory, people were singing Song’s tournament praises. But now, with an EPT title – arguably one of the toughest major titles in poker to achieve against one of the biggest fields in the tour’s history – Song has built a resume that not only cements him as an ever-present large-field threat to win it all, but a must-watch superstar for years to come.