Since the organization’s creation in 1979, the Poker Hall of Fame has sought to honor the greats of the game (actually having a physical location would be a good start, but I digress). To date, 63 members have been inducted, making it a highly exclusive club (there are 33 living members of the Hall). Over the past few years, however, there have been numerous complaints about the Hall’s voting process – and the “powers that be” at the Hall hope that radical changes to the voting process will quash these complaints.
Possible Induction of up to Six Members Yearly
First, there will be no changes to the way the nominees are determined. The public will still have the opportunity to choose those who will be considered for induction into the Hall. One slight change to this process will be that the public will choose eight nominees for induction; previously, the public chose ten nominees for consideration.
The real changes come in the voting process.
The 33 living members of the Hall now have four votes to distribute, down from the previous ten. The Hall members still have the right to give all four votes to one person or to split them among four nominees. In a departure from the past, there is now a concrete threshold for nominees to meet before they can be inducted.
If a nominee earns votes from 22 or more of the Hall voters (two-thirds of the living Hall members), then that person earns an automatic induction. There is a caveat that if no nominee can garner the 22-vote mark, only the nominee with the highest overall vote count receives the induction nod. In an additional twist, the Hall of Fame voting will make the vote tallies public, a level of transparency not previously seen in the process.
Once the votes have been tallied, the announcement of the new inductee – or inductees – will be made during the play of the 2026 WSOP Main Event Final Table.
Too Many Potential Inductees?
Although standards for induction were never publicly disclosed, the process of induction brought two new members to the Hall for many years. After the initial seven inductees in 1979, there were one or two inductions each year. 1994, 1996, and from 1998 to 2000, there were zero inductions for the Hall, but from 2005 through 2019 (save for 2009, when Mike Sexton was the only induction), two members were inducted each year.
In 2020 (and for a reason never explained), the Poker Hall of Fame limited inductions to only one individual (there have been three women inducted into the Hall: Barbara Enright, Linda Johnson, and Jennifer Harman), which severely curtailed inductions for very deserving individuals. In 2025, Nick Schulman earned the lone induction, but after decimating the fields in the $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship and winning the World Championship Main Event, Michael Mizrachi was inducted by acclamation of the living Hall members.
Going from one inductee to six is quite the leap.
If the living Hall members manipulate their votes appropriately, it could result in as many as six inductees each year (there are 132 votes available among the 33 members; that breaks down to six candidates receiving 22 votes each). That, to be honest, is far too many for each year; it is an overreaction to the complaint that not enough people were being inducted.
To make the Poker Hall of Fame better (sorry, keep coming back to that ‘physical location’ thing), what should be done is a two player/one industry person induction process. That ensures that two players, who have been formative figures of the game, would be inducted. Additionally, one industry person – a tournament director, announcer, or writer, say – would be ensured of enshrinement.
The moves by GGPoker and the WSOP to change the process are a bit of an improvement, but they could introduce more issues – I do not think anyone is clamoring for a six-person induction class. Nominations are now open for the public to do their part by naming the individuals they believe are worthy of Hall of Fame induction. It will be interesting to see who the public produces for nominees this year – and even more intriguing to see how the 33 living Hall members handle their duties.