WSOP Paradise returns to the Bahamas from 2–17 December 2026, this time at Baha Mar, with 20 bracelet events and $120 million in guarantees. Five more events than last year, and for the first time every single one carries at least a $1 million guarantee — a seven-figure floor across the entire lineup.
It is a bigger festival than the one before it in every measurable way. It is also, for the second consecutive year, a festival with no online bracelet events attached — and if you're reading this from a rakeback site, that's the line that actually concerns you.
The online route is closed, and it isn't coming back quietly
The first two editions of Paradise ran online bracelet events on GGPoker in parallel with the live schedule. Last year they didn't. This year they don't either.
Two years is no longer a gap; it's a policy. There is no version of this festival you can win from home. If you want Paradise hardware, you need a seat in the Bahamas in December.
Which leaves qualification. GGPoker runs WSOP Express, a year-round qualification route on the platform, and WSOP Online may add satellites closer to the date. If Paradise is on your list, that is where to be looking — and looking early, since a December festival satellited from a standing start in November is an expensive way to buy a seat.
Worth doing the boring part first: WSOP Express runs on GGPoker, so the qualification route assumes a GGPoker account. If you are opening one for this, open it through us rather than directly — the volume you put through satellites counts toward rakeback the same as anything else. Our GGPoker review covers the current terms, and if you want to know what extras we can arrange, talk to us before you register — it's much harder to sort out afterwards.
The entry point is $2,750, and that's by design
The cheapest events on the schedule are a pair of $2,750 buy-ins. Above that the lineup runs heavily toward high rollers and six-figure events, topping out at the $250,000 WSOP Invitational.
Note how that interacts with the headline. The $1 million guarantee floor is achieved partly by not having cheap events. A festival with a $400 opener would struggle to guarantee seven figures on it; a festival that starts at $2,750 doesn't have that problem.
That's a legitimate design choice for a December high-stakes festival, and it's consistent with everything else on the schedule. It just means the realistic audience is narrower than "20 bracelet events" implies. As at last year's edition, players pay a 10% entry fee on top of the buy-in plus a 5% staff fee — standard for the format, but worth building into your number before you book anything.
Solana replaces Triton, and takes over the cashier
The last two editions ran many events in collaboration with Triton. That partnership is gone. In its place, the Solana Foundation is headline sponsor, with the festival branded WSOP Paradise Presented by Solana — the same arrangement that ran through the Las Vegas summer series.
The operational consequence is more interesting than the branding. Paradise will be the first time players can buy into WSOP tournaments using Solana, with crypto cashouts also expected to be available.
Read alongside the summer, where Solana's own executives put the network at roughly $23 million in payments into the Las Vegas series — around 6% of all buy-ins — the direction is consistent. Crypto is being installed as a payment rail at the largest live poker festival in the world, not as a marketing sticker. Whether that matters to you depends entirely on whether moving money is currently a friction point in your poker life. For a lot of international players, it is.
If you have never used SOL and are now looking at a December festival that accepts it, the practical questions — wallets, networks, what actually happens if you send to the wrong chain — are covered in our guide to Solana deposits and SOL-accepting sites. The one mistake that costs real money is sending over the wrong network, and it is unrecoverable.
What's actually new on the schedule
Briefly, because the full lineup is on the WSOP's own site and there is no sense reproducing it here.
The mixed-game offering has expanded noticeably — a $10,000 8-Game, a $26,000 9-Game Mixed Championship and a $5,300 Bahamas Big Bet Mix played as Dealer's Choice all join the schedule, alongside a $2,750 Double Board Bomb Pot LO. COLOSSUS and PLOSSUS return in $10,000 versions.
At the top, a $100,000 Super High Roller NLH carries a $10 million guarantee, with a PLO version at the same buy-in guaranteeing $5 million.
Two guarantee movements are worth noting because they point in opposite directions. The GGMillion$ NLH Championship has doubled from $10 million to $20 million while returning to a $10,000 buy-in. The Super Main Event has gone the other way, back to a $50 million guarantee after last year's $60 million.
That second one is quietly informative. Last year's Super Main generated $72.2 million against a $60 million guarantee — it beat the number by twelve million and the guarantee still came down. Read that as the operator managing exposure rather than as a signal about expected turnout.
Last year's festival produced $201.8 million in prize money across 15 bracelet events, averaging $13.5 million each, from more than 8,000 entries.
Against that, $120 million guaranteed across 20 events looks conservative rather than ambitious — an average guarantee of $6 million per event against a $13.5 million average actual last year. The guarantees are a floor the WSOP expects to clear comfortably, not a stretch target.
This is also the first serious overhaul of the Paradise schedule since NSUS, GGPoker's parent, took ownership of the WSOP in 2024. More events, a higher floor, mixed games expanded, Triton out, crypto in, online bracelets gone. Those changes are coherent with each other, and they describe a festival being repositioned toward live high-stakes and away from the online player.
Key details
| Dates | 2–17 December 2026 |
| Venue | Baha Mar Hotel & Resort, Bahamas |
| Bracelet events | 20 (up from 15) |
| Total guarantees | $120 million, $1 million minimum per event |
| Cheapest buy-in | $2,750 |
| Opening event | Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty NLH, $2,750, $5M GTD — free entry for the previous year's Circuit and ring winners |
| Super Main Event | $26,000, $50 million GTD |
| Most expensive | $250,000 WSOP Invitational |
| Fees | 10% entry fee plus 5% staff fee, as last year |
| Online bracelets | None |
| Qualification | GGPoker WSOP Express, year-round; WSOP Online satellites possible later |
| Coverage | Daily stream from 5 December, 3 PM ET, WSOP YouTube |
The WSOP Player of the Year race is decided here, and the series closes with a $15,000 Last Chance in Paradise NLH. The Closer returns as the GGPoker Bounty Wheel, with its buy-in doubled to $5,300 — knock out an opponent and you spin for prizes ranging from tournament tickets and Spin & Gold bundles down to airport transfers and, apparently, pizza.
If Paradise is realistic for you, the useful move now is the qualification route rather than the schedule. Everything else can be decided in November.
18+. Gamble responsibly. BeGambleAware.org · Schedules, guarantees and fee structures are set by the operator and subject to change. Confirm current details with the WSOP before committing to travel.
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