PokerStars’ WCOOP 25 Is Here With $65M Guaranteed
September is about to bring the busiest month of the year for online poker. The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) returns to PokerStars on September 7 and will run through October 1, 2025. Across nearly a month of action, the schedule packs in 123 events and 378 tournaments, with more than $65 million guaranteed.
WCOOP 2025 won’t quite match last year’s record-setting edition, when players walked away with over $95 million in prize money, but the prestige remains the same.
Now in its 24th year, WCOOP has become the arena where pros measure themselves against their peers, where the occasional dreamer can turn a satellite ticket into six figures, and everything in between.
The Schedule & Key Formats
Over three weeks, PokerStars will run 123 events and 378 tournaments, almost all of them offered at Low, Medium, and High buy-ins, meaning players can start at $5.50 and work their way up, while the top end of the schedule features nosebleed stakes, such as the $25,000 High Roller.
The heart of the series is still no-limit hold’em, but WCOOP has always catered for mixed games. The 2025 schedule includes Pot-Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, HORSE, 8-Game, Badugi, and Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw.
The series also brings back its 11 Championship events, each designed to crown the best in a specific format. A few to circle: the $1,050 HORSE Championship on September 10, the $5,200 NLHE 6-Max Championship on September 14, the $1,050 PLO8 Championship on September 15, and the $1,050 Razz Championship on September 17. Toward the end of the series, players will see the $2,100 8-Game Championship (Sept 22), the $1,050 Badugi Championship (Sept 25), and the $215 Women’s NLHE Championship (Sept 27). Everything then funnels into the NLHE and PLO Main Events on September 28.
Main Event Sunday – The Big Stage
Everything in WCOOP builds toward September 28, when the Main Events get underway. Naturally, it’s the biggest day of the series and the one every player circles.
On the no-limit hold’em side, there are three buy-in levels: the $109 Main Event with $2 million guaranteed, the $1,050 Main Event with $3 million guaranteed, and the $10,300 High Main Event with $4 million guaranteed. Pot-limit Omaha has its own trio of championships: the $109 PLO Main Event ($150K Gtd), the $1,050 PLO Main Event ($400K Gtd), and the $10,300 PLO Main Event ($500K Gtd).
The history of WCOOP main event finales is packed with big names and breakout stories. Last year, Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden took down the $10,300 NLHE Main Event for just over $1 million, one of the largest scores of his career. In the $1,050 Medium Main Event, Brazil’s Iago “stek94” Botelho banked $441,809, while Ukraine’s “777ANTONY777” outlasted more than 25,000 entries in the $109 Main to win $209,747.
Pathways, Promos & Leaderboards
There are plenty of ways to get into WCOOP without paying the full whack. PokerStars is running special WCOOP Spin & Go’s starting from $0.50/$0.75, where players can win tickets worth up to $10,300. On top of that, a $55 Power Path Express satellite on September 7 guarantees more than $200,000 in seats, including entries to the Main Events and Power Path passes worth up to $2,500. Traditional satellites are available daily, plus freerolls and deposit offers will feed players into the festival, too.
The Lucky Dip promotion returns with $500,000 in tickets to be won. Each WCOOP tournament entry gives a random score between 1 and 1,000,000, but only your highest score counts toward the daily leaderboard. Prizes range from small-seat entries to the biggest buy-ins on the schedule, including $10,300 Main Event tickets.
For anyone putting in serious volume, the WCOOP leaderboards are the perfect grind. Split into Low, Medium, High, and Overall, they carry $100,000 in cash prizes. The breakdown is $25K for the overall winner, $15K for the High leaderboard, $10K for Medium, and $5K for Low. Last year, “FAL1st” secured the Player of the Series title after amassing nearly 3,000 points and five wins, finishing ahead of big names like Blaz “Scarmak3r” Zerjav and Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski.