The game of poker has had its ups and downs over the years, and there were even times when it seemed like it was all going downhill.
Yet, the last few years have seen a massive resurgence of interest in poker, fueled partially by the new types of media content coming through social platforms like YouTube and X.
Overall, 2024 was a great year for poker, as all relevant indicators were trending upward, and the poker world got glimpses of an even brighter future.
Over the past 12 months, we have seen poker heroes triumph, villains go down in flames, and some of the game’s top organizations make big moves to secure their future.
We take a look at the top 10 moments that left the biggest impression on the community in 2024 and the stories that will go down in the history of the game.
#10 – Online Poker Operators Shaken by Scandals
A lot of great things for poker happened in 2024, but the year started out quite shaky, with two major poker sites being involved in major scandals.
The first was GGPoker, the biggest poker site in the world. In early January, it was discovered that a player going under the screen name “MoneyTaker69” was able to abuse the GGPoker software to gain an unfair advantage at the tables.
This advantage was enough to allow MoneyTaker69 to win tens of thousands of dollars over a short span of time, and it sparked questions about the site’s overall security.
Just days later, ACR Poker was also caught up in a scandal, as new allegations of a massive botting ring on the site came to light on the poker forums.
ACR issued a challenge to the poker community and promised a $100k reward for anyone who can create a functional bot and use it on the platform. The challenge was backtracked after a few days, and a bad taste was left in the mouths of many ACR players.
At the end of the day, these two situations left quite a few questions about the integrity of the game, although the rest of the year was mostly devoid of similar scandals involving any major poker sites.
#9 – The Foxens Cement Their Poker Legacy
Alex and Kristen Foxen are one of poker’s most famous couples and are both incredible poker players in their own right.
In 2024, both Alex and Kristen shined on the big stage, taking down one title after the next and ensuring the name Foxen rarely leaves the headlines.
Both players started the years with strong performances at the PGT Kickoff series, where they both won titles and final tabled multiple events.
Kristen almost made poker history in one fell swoop as she made a deep run at the WSOP Main Event, only to bust out in 13th place when a mistimed semi-bluff went wrong.
October quickly rolled around and Alex won an online WSOP bracelet in a $500 PLO event. Not one to be outdone, Kristen won a bracelet of her own in the same series, making it five in her illustrious career.
Alex would go on to win a $50k High Roller title in Monte Carlo and the $100k Triton Main Event during WSOP Paradise, for a total of more than $5 million in payouts, while Kristen won a place in the WiPHOF, adding to her overall poker legacy.
The Foxen couple was truly everywhere in 2024, and we are more than likely to see plenty of both of them in 2025 as their bankrolls and fame in the poker world continue to grow by the day.
#8 – Nick Vertucci Accused of Misconduct
2024 gave us a lot of great stories charged with positive vibes, but one of the most talked about stories of the year was anything but positive.
One of the two founders of the popular “Hustler Casino Live” YouTube show, Nick Vertucci, was accused of sexual harassment by a former regular in the games, Julia from Palmdale.
Julia made her accusations via social media, where she shared screenshots of her recent interactions with Vertucci, which painted the HCL co-owner in a pretty bad light.
These allegations sparked other women who were involved with the show to come out with their stories, all of them implying that Nick was guilty of sexual harassment.
The story quickly took over all major poker media, and the poker community was strongly supportive of the ladies, condemning Vertucci’s behavior.
Without ever commenting on the story, Vertucci and HCL parted ways, with the show announcing Nick would no longer be involved with the production effective immediately.
Vertucci’s equity in the show was probably bought out by an undisclosed entity, with Ryan Feldman left as the only public face of Hustler Casino Live over the last few months of 2024.
#7 – Scott Seiver Wins Three WSOP Bracelets and POY Title
Scott Seiver has long been a staple of the poker world, and 2024 was a year he will never forget, even if tournament poker is not his preferred poker format.
The mixed cash game specialist dedicated his summer to grinding out a full WSOP schedule and managed to win a staggering three WSOP bracelets in a single Series, a feat few players have managed in the past.
Seiver won 4,403.85 WSOP POY points, 600 more than his closest rival, and took home a unique trophy and a 2025 WSOP Main Event seat.
More important for Seiver will be the legacy of winning the title, which will be an important step in his quest to join the Poker Hall of Fame.
Despite being primarily a cash game player, Seiver now has seven WSOP bracelets, an accomplishment that many tournament specialists can only dream of, which is a testimony to his incredible poker skills.
Seiver’s dominant performance at the 2024 WSOP was one of the biggest stories of the year, and one that will be remembered for years to come.
#6 – Phil Ivey Dominates the Headlines
There are some poker players who attract tons of attention simply by showing up at a poker event, let alone by winning it. Widely considered to be the best player ever to play the game, Phil Ivey certainly tops that list.
After taking an extended break from poker for a few years, Ivey has been more and more active in poker as of late, and 2024 was the first year we saw him come back to the ring in full force.
Phil started the year with a series of cashes at Triton Poker Series events in Jeju and Montenegro, good for well over $2 million in prize money.
As summer rolled around, Ivey headed out to Vegas to play at the WSOP like the good old days and was able to add WSOP bracelet #11 to his impressive resume.
Ivey won the 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball Championship event outright while also final tabling the $50k Poker Players Championship and the $25k HORSE High Roller and making a deep run in the Main Event.
The impressive results made 2024 the year of Phil Ivey, as he aims to make an even bigger impression on the poker world and truly cement his place as the greatest poker player of all time.
#5 – Daniel Negreanu Wins a WSOP Bracelet After 11 Years
Despite being one of the best tournament players in the world, Daniel Negreanu has had a tough time winning WSOP silverware in recent years.
In fact, Daniel hadn’t won a WSOP bracelet on US soil since 2008, while his last two WSOP wins came in Australia and Europe in 2013.
Dnegs was finally able to put an end to the draught at the 2024 WSOP by taking down one of the toughest tournaments of the Series, the $50k Poker Players Championship.
Negreanu had to overcome a tough final table that included the likes of Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Chris Brewer, and Bryce Yockey in order to capture one of the most coveted titles in the game.
The victory was a special one for the GGPoker Ambassador, as he had been patiently working towards a new WSOP bracelet for years.
Despite the $1.18 million win in the PPC, Daniel still lost money over the summer, as disclosed in his popular vlogs, mostly due to bricking out the ultra-high-stakes events at the Series.
Despite all that, Negreanu had cause to celebrate, and his winning his 7th WSOP bracelet will definitely go down as one of the top poker moments of 2024.
#4 – Peter Wins a Fortune on HCL Million Dollar Game
For the second year in a row, Hustler Casino Live aired its Million Dollar Game, a live-streamed cash game with million-dollar buyins.
This time around, the game aired over four days, with over a dozen players taking their seats in the biggest game of the year, if not all-time.
The likes of Alan Keating, Tom Dwan, Doug Polk, and Santhosh Suvarna all took part in the game, but in the end, it was a relative newcomer to the world of high-stakes poker, a man who goes by the name Peter, who walked away with a fortune.
The Chinese businessman played on three of the four days of the Million Dollar Game and won each time, taking home just under $5,000,000 in profits.
Peter played a wild style of poker throughout his appearance on the show, but the cards fell his way on multiple occasions as he continued to build up his stacks and rack in millions.
Suvarna and Keating also had huge winning weeks, while the likes of Texas Mike, Thomas, Rahul, and Action Dan all lost seven figures in this epic game.
We will be hoping to see another iteration of the Million Dollar game in 2025 as HCL continues its mission to remain the world’s most popular poker show.
#3 – Jonathan Tamayo Sparks Laptopgate
The 2024 WSOP Main Event was a special one, as the Series was able to shatter its own attendance record for the second year in a row as 10,112 players showed up to play the game’s biggest freezeout event.
With over $100,000,000 in play, it was expected players would use any advantage they could get, and champion Jonathan Tamayo certainly did just that.
As play came down to the final nine, Tamayo was joined at the final table by a couple of special railbirds: poker professional Dominik Nitsche and former Main Event champion Joe McKeehen.
Their presence on the rail was nothing unusual, as plenty of other pros were there supporting their friends. One thing stood out, however, as the pair came equipped with more than just their poker knowledge and experience.
Nitsche and McKeehen stood by the rail with a laptop open and were seen running simulations in poker solvers on more than one occasion throughout the final table.
As Tamayo regularly approached the rail and talked to the two, it was not unusual for many in the poker community to see this incident as a form of cheating.
While Tamayo was allowed to “get away with it” this time, WSOP has now instituted new rules that prohibit the use of technology in the tournament area and restrict the actions of both players and railbirds that could be construed as cheating.
The players at the 2024 WSOP Main Event final table will likely be the last to have to deal with this kind of RTA use at a major live poker tournament, and it’s all thanks to the massive outrage that “Laptopgate” sparked among poker players and fans.
#2 – WPT Launches ClubWPT Gold with a $5 Million Freeroll
Most major poker tours had a good year in 2024, with attendance numbers going up and no lack of action at any of the stops.
For the World Poker Tour in particular, 2024 was a very special year, as the organization soft-launched ClubWPT Gold, its brand new sweepstakes poker platform, designed to bring poker to players across the USA.
WPT decided to launch a sweepstakes poker site in order to bring the World Poker Tour brand into the homes of poker fans across the country and celebrated the launch with a $5,000,000 freeroll at the final stop of the 2024 WPT season.
2,000 “Golden Passports” were given away to fans of WPT throughout the months leading up to the WPT World Championship, each giving players a chance to participate in the $5 Million Invitational Freeroll.
The Championship was a true spectacle, with players sharing millions in the Freeroll and WPT giving away additional prizes to celebrate the launch, including a brand-new McLaren GTS worth $250,000.
These festivities were just a glimpse into what awaits us in 2025 as ClubWPT Gold launches in full and gives American players a chance to compete in large-scale poker games once again.
#1 – GGPoker Acquires WSOP
In early August 2024, the poker world woke up to the news of WSOP, the biggest live tournament series in the game being sold to NSUS Group Inc, the leading investment group behind GGPoker.
GGPoker had been WSOP’s online poker partner for years, so the acquisition was quite natural, although it came with no prior hints from either side.
Caesars Entertainment announced it was selling the WSOP brand to NSUS Group for $500 million, one half of which was paid in cash and the other half in the form of a promissory note due in five years.
The deal also ensured that WSOP would remain in Las Vegas for at least 20 years, which means players can rest assured that their yearly routine will not be disturbed too much.
Yet, GGPoker also announced it would be aiming to expand the WSOP brand beyond its current state, which likely means further WSOP festivals will become available for players in other parts of the world at some point.
GGPoker acquiring WSOP should also mean more opportunities to qualify for the Series online and more direct GGPoker involvement with the brand, all of which should be positive for the poker community as a whole.
