Leaving the industry in the dust
GGPoker has been the undisputed king of online poker for several years now, but on Sunday, it put its stamp on it. That afternoon, the poker site tweeted that it had flown past the 500,000 concurrent player milestone, specifically hitting 565,015, easily a new online poker record.
But wait, there’s more. Less than an hour later, GGPoker took to social media again, announcing that it had eclipsed the 600,000-player mark.
To put those numbers in perspective, PokerStars set a record way back in 2009 with 307,000 players online at the same time. GGPoker beat that earlier this month with a few thousand more, but doubling it on Sunday is just silly.
As mentioned, GGPoker was already the world’s largest online poker site, snatching the crown from PokerStars a long time ago, but it has ridden the momentum of the 2025 WSOP Online to all new heights. Though the WSOP Online has been held on GGPoker before, this is the time GGPoker has hosted it while at the same time owning the WSOP: it acquired the World Series of Poker in October 2024.
According to PokerScout, early evening ET, GGPoker has over 380,000 players online.
Play for a WSOP entry
And it’s not just the WSOP Online, though one would guess that it is accounting for most of the skyrocketing player numbers at the moment. In addition to all the different tournaments and cash games, the site is also running the WSOP Express, a steps-type series of events to give players the opportunity to qualify for WSOP bracelet and ring events.
Step 1 is a $0.50 All-in or Fold Sit-and-Go, which is exactly what it sounds like: you can only go all-in or fold on each hand. GGPoker does reload players’ stacks twice for no additional charge, so it’s essentially $0.17 per bullet.
Make it through Step 1 and it’s on to Step 2, a $2 6-max Spin & Gold tourney. The first prize is randomized, most commonly a ticket to Step 3, but in rare occasions, it could be a WSOP Circuit and Ring pass or a WSOP Super Pass.
Step 3 is a $10 Target Stack Turbo Tournament, where you start with 3,000 chips and qualify for Step 4 once you accumulate 50,000 chips. The number of Step 4 tickets available depends on the number of people in the tournament.
Step 4 is a $150 standard multi-table satellite tournament, where the prize – a bracelet pass, ring pass, super pass, or the like – depends on what tournament you enter.
All steps can also be entered directly for the listed buy-in amount.