2026 World Series of Poker May 26th - July 15th

FYI - you're allowed to gift a person up to $19,000 per year, so that amount is under that so he wouldn't need to pay taxes. I think you paying him an amount net of your tax obligation is more than fair and pretty transparent as explained. In your shoes I'd be comfortable with that payment.

Yes, if someone wanted to be official and pay gross amount and issue 1099 to person, maybe that's a play with someone you don't know. But this is your brother paying him amount less 24% tax (maybe guesstimate your federal and state tax to feel 100% that 24% is a good figure).

Get a lawyer to draft a contract for payout distribution, the top few will also need a CPA to tax correctly.

However, it'll get messy for the internationals with taxes.. depends.

If the wsop would just facilitate and pay what's agreed upon, it would save the headache.

To me it's a huge disservice to the players, it's their money.

Could send a brutal message to wsop and have the FT last 5 hands. Deal made, everyone all in pre, didn't leave any $$ to play for 😀

They like to have the drama who gets ten, six or whatever millions by playing.

Would you be willing to bet $1M+ that (a) WSOP would not take action against you for violating the event rules; and (b) a court would not void your contract with the other players on the basis that it is an unenforceable gambling contract among other possible reasons? Whoever takes first place has about four million reasons to challenge the enforcement of any deal.

Was just checking out the final 9 and noticed Lucas Jumalon, he was at one of my tables on Day 3! That's so cool.

I would like the payouts to be smoother. Now they have the ten vs one million as kind of a default. Round numbers. Just seven to the winner would be ok with me. And give the last guy one and a half.

Yes. Nice if the chip leader would win for a change.

I agree with this, don't want to derail this thread, but in general i think most tournaments are too top heavy and should also reward the middle band of the payouts better, i.e. the people who finish in the top .2-5% band. Almost every tournament is 1st is 10x 9th etc... and you can finish in the top 1-1.5% and win only a couple of buy ins. I am in the minority here but I think this would overall be better for poker in general.

Also I think it is good that WSOP pays out 15%, vs the standardish 12.5. It has gotten better, in the past many moons ago most tournaments only paid out the top 10% and pay jumps were even bigger.

Just FYI to all gifters.: You can gift more than 19k/yr, it just cuts into your lifetime gift exemption amount, which is $15 mil per person right now lol. Technically you should file a gift tax return over 19k, but meh. And if he has a spouse, you could gift them both 19k. Or your spouse could gift 19k on top of your gift.

Totally agree especially because of the huge amount of luck involved late in a tournament. I’m not sure this is a hot take - I think a lot of people agree. But tournament operators need to advertise a big top-line number and the dollars have to come from somewhere.

Stating the obvious but would be nice to have the 25K Horse streamed today

Hellmuth 8/64 in 5K NLHE. Longshot still, but would be funny to have them claim they are televising everything and have zero coverage of bracelets by both Hellmuth and Negreanu.

Hellmuth now chipleader 1/45

68BBs and second has 48BBs

The standard was min 2x for any cash. Payouts less than that are lol bad. When they changed to 15% ITM it screwed up the payout structures top, middle, and bottom.

IANATA, but check out IRS form 5754. It's used for a winner who represents a syndicate of 2 or more persons who share in winnings.

their stream production would've left when espn came in and espn just left and they are not coming back again for just a few events. Sucks for us but logistically not reasonable. We don't need every event streamed but production logistics vs what the viewers would like to see is a juggling act. edit--I've hoped for more variable coverage where we just see what's interesting that day but this year was more of the rigid kind of this or that event (then stop pokernews from covering it if they moved something else to the side coverage then barely show any of that was a bit irritating too) reality is they're certainly spending more than they are getting in return for all of this, so every event isn't likely even though I think there's maybe a few hundred people who would watch a no commentary/hole cards from a go pro type of camera on a side stream if the event had some name to watch on it.

Nobody asked for nor wanted anything that they did. Coverage was just as good probably better with table in corner of Rio. Everything went down hill once they built that mothership chit.

They didn't need a multi million dollar set, that countdown show, or Jeff platt running around the room. Day 4 of PPC in a janitor's closet with someone like Kevin Gerheart would have gotten as many views as any other prelim event.

Yeah I knew they were done, but a trimmed down crew would have been possible if someone else was involved. But they think everyone wants an elaborate production every day. All that said, would be funny if Hellmuth won and they also missed that.

Hellmuth and David Peters on the same table with 17 left in $5k. They could just put a phone on a stand next to the table and livestream it on YouTube for basically zero cost. Maybe I am missing something but don't see any big downside to doing that

So without reading through the last week with the main event can someone answer a question?

What the **** is wrong with Givens? I just watched a highlight clip and saw his exit and he was stoic in his knockout but what. In. The. Hell. Was he babbling about?

He provide some comedy throught the coverage?

All I got out of Will Givens' act was obnoxiousness.
Maybe some other people got comedy or amusement out of him, I didn't.

Givens was playing a bit out there and had an entertaining table a few nights ago with some guy next to him jamming all sorts of rags before he busted. After that played more normal and showed up late. A few talks here and there with pro name dropping that was posted earlier (no idea if it's still up) but no real good tea out of that.

I didn't understand the countdown show either. They definitely could've saved some money there. A set was a good idea; it's better for us viewing at home and we don't hear a player being loud at a nearby table and more room to rail or spectate. Yeah having big name pros winning bracelets and we don't see any of it in 2026 is not great.

You are a long timer, do you remember the setup back in Amazon room around 2008? Secluded, great atmosphere on table, setup probably cost 1% of what they did this year.

Hellmuth is chip leader at final table

On one of the only days of the year with no pro sports how many views would this be getting

Doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d trust with getting rid of the getaway van though.