Join the 23rd Edition of PokerStars’ Iconic MicroMillions

On the heels of GGPoker’s microFestival finishing, PokerStars’ iconic MicroMillions tournament starts. This event is the 23rd instalment of this low-buy-in tournament catering to smaller bankrolls with big prizes. Learn what to expect from this event, and see what’s new with it in 2024.

This series debuted in 2012. The original event ran thrice a year and offered around $5 million. This impressive guarantee resulted in an average guarantee of $50,000 per event. It sometimes even awarded up to $8 million or $9 million for each tournament. 

However, in 2016, the poker room changed the timeline to the MicroMillions to once a year each summer. The prize pools decreased by almost 25%, but PokerStars increased the event count the following year. While the average guarantee per event dropped significantly, its overall prize pool increased.

However, none of the series since 2015 has reached the $5 guaranteed prize pool mark. In fact, the last three editions seemed to plateau the overall guarantee somewhere between $4 million and $4.5 million.

GGPoker introduced its version of this micro stakes event in 2022, originally called microMILLION$. While it’s since been rebranded to microFestival, it’s intended to compete directly with PokerStars’ event.

However, where PokerStars has decreased its overall guarantee, GGPoker impresses with a massive $10 million prize pool. It’s spread over 400 events, with buy-ins between $1 and $25. While both originated with the same idea, the scale of these events cannot be compared.

The 2024 MicroMillions tournament started on July 7th and will run until the 21st. There will be the same number of tournaments as last year, namely 208, but the overall guarantee is slightly up to $4.4 million. It’s the tournament for “those who have big poker dreams, but don’t necessarily have big poker bankrolls.”

The buy-ins for these tournaments range between $1.10 and $55, with an average buy-in of $4.97. Below, we list how many events are there in each buy-in category:

• $1.10 - 28
• $2.20 - 11
• $3.30 - 60
• $5.50 - 90
• $11 - 15
• $22 - Three
• $55 - One

Brand new on the schedule are 15 Mystery Bounty events. While most games are still No-limit Hold’em variants (139 tournaments), there are also 54 non-bounty games. The formats include Zoom, Win the Button, Bubble Rush, Deep Stacks, Adrenalin, and Last Player Standing.

Various table structures are available for these tournaments, such as 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-handed tables. Full ring and Heads-up tables are also part of the action. These options deliver a significant variety of games that no other operator has matched so far.

These last two months were action-packed ones for poker players. Not only did the GGPoker microFestival occur, but PokerStars debuted its Mystery Bounty Series. This month continues to be busy, with MicroMillions events running until July 21st.

While PokerStars collected almost $372,000 in profit with its Mystery Bounty Series, it also had two overlays on its $1 million guaranteed events. We’ll watch its micro stakes tournament to see how it performs in the next two weeks.