$250m GG World Festival underway, featuring 1,600 tournaments

The world’s biggest poker festival, the GG World Festival, started on 4 May and will run until 10 June. Last year’s event saw more than five million entries and an eventual total prize pot of $340million paid out to players. 

There are four tiers of competitions, with buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $10,300. Two flagship events include guaranteed $10m prize pots, and players across all the tiers are also entered into separate leaderboards with the potential for even more prizes. 

The festival is, unsurprisingly, the largest of its kind in the world. This year’s event is expected to attract around five million entries across the 1,600 events. The events include 400 each across four different tiers.

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The low tier has affordable buy-ins starting at just $5.50 each, up to $25. The biggest event in this tier is held on 10 May. The $25 Saturday Secret KO (Mystery Bounty) event has a $25 buy-in and a guaranteed $300,000 prize pot. Once all remaining players are in the money, mystery bounties start, meaning random players will win cash bounties for eliminating players. Late registration is available for this tournament, and unlimited re-entries are permitted right up to the 15th level.

Medium tier tournaments have buy-ins between $26 and $150, and there are two $1m guarantee events. However, the biggest medium-tier event is the $55 Global World Festival. Players who make it through any of the dozens of day one phases will play in the tournament’s day two phase on 12 May and are playing for their share of a guaranteed $2.025m prize pot. 

High-tier tournament buy-ins start at $151 and go right up to $1,050. The phased event in this tier has a guaranteed $5m prize pool, and 10% of players from each of the first phases will proceed to day two on 9 June. Mystery bounties come into play on day two.

The super tier is the high-rollers tier with players stumping up buy-ins of more than $1,050. The super tier has two $10m guarantee tournaments as well as the $10,300 GGMillion$ High Rollers tournament, which will feature some of the biggest names from the poker world. The final table is due to be streamed on GGPoker’s YouTube channel on 12 May. 

All tiers also have their own leaderboards. The winner from each leaderboard will receive a $2,500 WSOP ticket. The low-tier leaderboard winner will also receive $27,500 in cash game dollars, while the medium-tier leaderboard winner will take $47,500 of cash game dollars, and the high-tier winner will collect $57,500. Whoever heads the super-tier leaderboard will walk away with $97,500 of cash game dollars. 

Cash game dollars can be spent on the GGPoker website to pay for cash games, but they can’t be converted to real money. 

The 2024 GG World Festival was considered a resounding success. It had the same $250m guarantee but eventually paid out more than $340m while its 5.1m entries was a significant increase from 2023’s 3m total. 

GGPoker Global Ambassador and 7-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu said of this year’s event: “The GG World Festival is not just another tournament series - it’s the ultimate celebration of the global poker community. 

“We’re proud to once again offer players the biggest guarantees in online poker and a festival that truly lives up to its name. This is where legends are made.”