The biggest stories of 2024 – a record breaking Main Event (again)


You wait 17 years to break the WSOP Main Event record and then it happens two years in a row (can we make it three?).

poker
Jonathan Tamayo

History repeated itself in Las Vegas as, for the 2nd year in a row, the attendance record for the Main Event was smashed. 

10,112 unique players this time around, beating the 2023 record of 10,043. Helped in no small part due to the increased number of players choosing to late register on Day 2. 

This is the breakdown of the starting days for the last three years:

Day202220232024 
Day 1A9001,080915
Day 1B8801,118830
Day 1C1,8003,0802,441
Day 1D4,4814,0725,014
Day 2602693912

The eventual winner was Jonathan Tamayo who took it down for $10 million (more on him in our next story recap). 

PlaceWinnerCountryPrize (in USD)
1Jonathan TamayoUnited States$10,000,000
2Jordan GriffUnited States$6,000,000
3Niklas AstedtSweden$4,000,000
4Jason SagleCanada$3,000,000
5Boris AngelovBulgaria$2,500,000
6Andres GonzalezSpain$2,000,000
7Brian KimUnited States$1,500,000
8Joe SerockUnited States$1,250,000
9Malo LatinoisFrance$1,000,000

Can we break the record in 2025? Well, we have just had a very impressive series of record-breaking fields in Prague, Vegas and the Bahamas suggesting live poker still has room to grow. Don’t bet against it. 

Will 2025 be a record breaker? Let us know in the comments: