2019 WSOP Betting Props: Will Main Event Numbers Continue to Rise?

The World Series of Poker is always the biggest event of the year for poker players and this year’s edition — the 50th anniversary, no less — is no exception.

The 2019 WSOP, which kicks off tomorrow, will offer a total of 80 different tournaments, including the spectacular $10,000 buy-in Main Event, and will run till July 16.

This year the WSOP schedule also includes a large number of low buy-in tournaments for players of all bankrolls starting with The Big 50, which offers a $5 million-guaranteed prize pool with no rake on the initial $500 buy-in. For more info, here’s A Lapsed Poker Fan’s Guide to the 2019 WSOP.

As usual the poker professionals will be out in force. Famed poker pro Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu will be leading the charge in an attempt to win a record third Player of the Year title and even sold a percentage of his action to fans this year.

Betting and poker go hand in hand and with that in mind there are several sportsbooks that have released odds and prop bets for the 2019 WSOP. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting bets.

How Many Entries for Main Event?

OVER 7,850.5 Entries -120

The WSOP Main Event — the richest poker tournament in the world — just keeps chugging along.

Despite the fact that online poker has slowed since the halcyon days of the early 2000s, the Main Event has always maintained its massive field.

Last year was a significant one for the Main Event as it attracted 7,874 players, which made it the second biggest all-time. The only bigger Main Event took place in 2006 but it had some help thanks to a huge influx of online players.

Will this year’s Main Event exceed last year’s impressive field? It’s always hard to say but considering poker has been trending up over the last year it seems there’s a good chance that it will.

This year Vegas will have a huge assortment of poker tournaments on tap, including partypoker’s own $10,000 buy-in event but all the extra tournaments might feed into Main Event attendance.

Will Phil Ivey or Phil Hellmuth Win a Bracelet?

Yes +180

One interesting prop is whether any of the big-name players, including Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, will win a WSOP gold bracelet between them.

Right off the bat you can take Doyle Brunson out of the equation since he’s effectively retired from tournament play.

Johnny Chan, who has 10 gold bracelets along with Brunson and Ivey, typically doesn’t play a ton of tournaments at the WSOP. In fact, Chan hasn’t made a WSOP final table since 2010 so he doesn’t bring a ton of value.

Meanwhile, Phil Ivey is a tough call. He’s one of the best poker players in the world but he simply hasn’t played much in Vegas recently. Instead he’s been spending his time allegedly playing huge private cash games in Asia. If Ivey actually shows up at the WSOP, he’s a good bet to take down some gold.

Finally, Phil Hellmuth will no doubt put in a huge amount of volume as he chases his record 16th bracelet. This bet is really about Hellmuth as he’s the only sure bet to play a large number of tournaments.

Hellmuth won his 15th bracelet last summer but we wouldn’t put it by him to go back to back and add another one this summer. The man knows how to close out a tournament.

Which High-Stakes Tournament Will Be More Popular?

$100,000 High Roller -120

This year there are two especially prestigious tournaments that will attract the attention of the best poker players in the world.

The first is the annual $50,000 Poker Players Championship. The PPC is regarded as one of the toughest tournaments in the world as players have to compete in 10 different games of poker including standbys like No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha but also more obscure games like Badugi and 2-7 No-Limit Draw Lowball.

The other prestigious event is a $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller tournament that takes place near the end of the series on June 11.

The buy-in is significantly higher than the PPC but because the $100k Super High Roller will take place exclusively in No-Limit Hold’em, there’s a good chance it will attract more players.

Here’s the full list of props offered on Sportsbook.eu: