Guaranteed $10 Million First Prize in WSOP Main Event 2014?

Due to a technical issue – or as a well executed marketing pull – the first draft of the official schedule of WSOP 2014 was released for a short period of time.

The unofficial tournament schedule of this year’s WSOP was released by Caesars Entertainment in December 2013. The summer festival is running from 27 May to 14 July at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA and the Main Event kicks off on 5 July. While the released document revealed some key information, it was still a bit sketchy on the detail and the first official draft was promised to be published early this year.

It has not happened yet, even though a version of it appeared on the WSOP website – whether as a mistake or to send the word viral is unknown. At any rate, some players were fast enough to grab screenshots of it and the document did include an intriguing detail: in addition to not displaying all of the c. 60 events that are expected, a $10 million guaranteed prize is promised for the winner of the Main Event.

To date, only one person has scooped in more than that as a world champion: Jamie Gold won the record breaking 2006 event for exactly $12 million.

Champions and turnouts of the past 10 WSOP Main Events are as follows:

2004: Greg Raymer – $5,000,000 (2,576 players)
2005: Joe Hachem – $7,500,000 (5,619)
2006: Jamie Gold – $12,000,000 (8,773)  
2007: Jerry Yang – $8,250,000 (6,358)
2008: Peter Eastgate – $9,152,416 (6,844)
2009: Joe Cada – $8,547,042 (6,494)
2010: Jonathan Duhamel – $8,944,310 (7,319)
2011: Pius Heinz – $8,715,638 (6,865)
2012: Greg Merson – $8,531,853 (6,598)  
2013: Ryan Riess – $8,361,570 (6,352)

WSOP management was quick to disable the page and has not yet commented on the issue. As a result, it remains uncertain whether the $10 million guaranteed prize is real, although to display it accidentally is highly unlikely.