The Poker World Was Up In Arms Over 2023 World Series Of Poker Main Event Payouts

The World Series of Poker Main Event begins day 4 on Monday with 1,517 players still in the field.

This year’s WSOP Main Event drew in a record-setting 10,043 entrants to the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em World Championship and 1,507 players will ‘make the money’ when play resumes on Monday and the field shrinks by 10.

With the largest main event field in World Series of Poker history, the record-setting prize pool totaled $93,399,900. On Saturday, the WSOP announced payouts for the field and the poker world was immediately up in arms. We’ll get into that below but first, here are the 2023 World Series of Poker Main Event Payouts:

1250th-1507th — $15,000
1005th-1249th — $17,500
963rd-1004th — $20,000
864th-962nd — $22,500
765th-863rd — $25,000
759th-764th — $27,500
666th-758th — $27,500
603rd-665th — $30,000
540th-602nd — $32,500
477th-539th — $35,000
414th-476th — $37,500
351st-413th — $40,000
310th-350th — $44,700
288th-309th — $44,700
225th-287th — $50,900
162nd-224th — $58,500
99th-161st — $67,700
90th-98th — $78,900
81st-89th — $92,600
72nd-80th — $109,400
63rd-71st — $130,300
54th-62nd — $156,100
45th-53rd — $188,400
36th-44th — $229,000
27th-35th — $280,100
18th-26th — $345,000
14th-17th — $430,200
12th-13th — $535,000
10th-11th — $700,000
9th — $900,000
8th — $1,125,000
7th — $1,425,000
6th — $1,850,000
5th — $2,400,000
4th — $3,000,000
3rd — $4,000,000
2nd — $6,500,00
1st — $12,100,000

The last 4 finishers are going to get very, very rich out of this. The rest of the field will do fine but the poker world was justifiably angry over the 2023 WSOP Main Event payouts, let me explain.

$33 million is going to the final table but 9th place is only earning $900,000. It would have been very, very easy for the WSOP to set up a payout structure where all 9 players at the final table earned *at least* $1 million.

We know it would be easy because at the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event won by Jamie Gold everyone at the final table became a millionaire. Jamie Gold took home a then-record $12,000,000 for first place.

It seems as if the WSOP was more focused on ensuring the 2023 Main Event winner earned $100K more than 2006 than they were about making everyone at the table millionaires. In 2006, the 9th place finisher (Dan Nassif) took home $1,566,858.

After announcing the payouts, the WSOP received a lot of instant feedback:

We could honestly stay here all day reading through replies. There are thousands of replies and quote tweets. But the consensus is the World Series of Poker made a major misstep by not ensuring everyone at the final table becomes a millionaire.

In 2006, only 873 players ‘made the money.’ It’s clear the WSOP wanted to ensure more of the field made the money in the Main Event this year. Their motivation for expanding the payouts to 1,507 players, however, remains up for interpretation.

In addition to the payouts being announced over the weekend, the WSOP also debuted this year’s main event bracelet and got Guy Fieri to help out (pictured above).