Poker Community Reacts to Sale of WSOP

Online gaming company NSUS Group, the owner of GGPoker, announced on Thursday its agreement to buy the World Series of Poker. Rumors about pending sales of the oldest tournament series in the game have circulated for years, but they never materialized. This time it was real -- $500 million for the brand, with $250 million in cash now and $250 million five years after the official closing date. 

Caesars Entertainment will give up tournament operations and the online WSOP brand to NSUS, but will continue to host the WSOP for the next 20 years, presumably at its new home in the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.

The ink on the announcement of the deal is barely dry. But Caesars is selling an extremely hot commodity in the world of poker, the WSOP, which has reached unprecedented levels since the pandemic of 2020. 

Reactions across the poker community are unsurprisingly diverse. A quick look around the internet suggests most people believe little will change, but some envision that this might make for a new future for the WSOP and alter the course of online poker in the United States. 

New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

One respected voice in gaming, Nolan Dalla (who sometimes writes for Casinos.com), was rather dismissive of the move. Dalla spent more than 20 years in the poker industry, serving as the press liaison for the WSOP dating back to its days at Binion’s Horseshoe. 

“Nobody within the World Series of Poker organization has any interest whatsoever in players and their bankrolls … other than what they can extract in profits,” Dalla stated in a quick missive on Facebook. 

“Fluffy PR statements as to new policies and preposterous pricing which are supposedly ‘player friendly’ are garbage,” Dalla wrote. “They don’t give a f**k about anything other than what can be extracted in a factory assembly line from the pulp of dreams and desperation of thousands.” 

World Poker Tour announcer and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Tony Dunst was nonplussed about the sale, “Was quite excited for this news until I saw Caesar’s (sic) will continue running WSOP for 20 years. Likely means the product will be status quo or maybe even worse, hope I’m wrong.”

Positive Money Moves

Some think the move – ownership by a company with a sizeable poker presence – might mean more money will be put into the WSOP. Triple WSOP bracelet winner David “ODB” Baker opined on X that “pumping money into the WSOP is a basic certainty” with NSUS ownership at the helm. “Feels impossible to be anything but positive.” 

Poker insider and summertime WSOP social media hired gun Kevin Mathers had some suggestions for the future of the WSOP under the NSUS umbrella. In his musings on X, Mathers produced a litany of ideas, including GGPoker becoming licensed by 2030 in the US, the end of the WSOP Europe following its 2024 schedule, and the potential expansion to include a WSOP Asia. 

Brian Balsbaugh, whose agency Poker Royalty represents many of the top pros in the game, including Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, was optimistic about potential changes while noting the business success of the move:

Negreanu, meanwhile, has remained surprisingly quiet on the situation as a GGPoker ambassador. 

He simply reposted GGPoker’s statement that “Exhilarating journeys await! 🤝”