Controversy regarding WSOP Paradise (Atlantis) 2025, including unlimited re-entry $26k "Super Main Event"

[Dan Druff]

WSOP Paradise was started in 2023, as an informal replacement to the Pokerstars PCA, which ended in 2019. It featured 15 bracelet events, and took place in December in the Bahamas at the Atlantis resort. The PCA was also at the Atlantis resort, usually in January, so they were very similar, except now it was WSOP affiliated instead of Pokerstars, and the events handed out bracelets.

There was some controversy when it started, as it was (likely correctly) perceived as a way to slow down the rapidly growing December WPT Wynn series in Vegas, which was highly popular in 2022 and a surprise hit. WSOP Paradise was scheduled at the same time as much of the WPT Wynn, which I'm sure was no accident.

In 2023 and 2024, the WSOP Paradise experience itself was relatively uncontroversial, other than a few hiccups.

However, this year, the second one under GGPoker rule (which bought the WSOP last year), had its share of issues.

First, it was discovered that suspended player Ren Lin, who was involved in a highly publicized online ghosting scandal, was quietly unsuspended right before WSOP Paradise. This frustrated people because it essentially rendered his supposed "WSOP suspension" meaningless, because he missed zero WSOP events!

However, this one died down pretty quickly, and it seemed GG dodged any major fallout from this faux-suspension.

But as the series went on, things got worse.

Players were increasingly unhappy with Atlantis itself. None of these complaints were new, and I've heard them going back to the 2000s, but the players were upset about:

- Some towers had tired-looking rooms, in major need of renovation
- Food was very expensive and not good
- Service was extremely slow, even by Bahamas standards
- Theft, presumably by staff members, was an issue for some people

Influencer Bryce Hall loudly complained on Instagram, which the WPT account (presumably run by SrslySirius) jumped on, in order to mock the WSOP's previous promotion of Bryce's attendance:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/WPT/status/2000305455567192243


But there was a lot more people found unappealing about the tournament than just Atlantis itself. Read on...

[Dan Druff]

WSOP Paradise featured a $26k "Super Main Event" with a whopping $60 million guarantee.

Many wondered if the guarantee would be reached, as this required over 2300 entries to avoid an overlay. Could they really accomplish this, with the tournament being located on an island, and costing $26k to enter?

The answer was YES, but unfortunately that brought on a controversy of its own.

The event was unlimited re-entry, with very late registration allowed to where people would be starting with about 20 big blinds at the end of that period.

Eyebrows were already raised when Daniel Negreanu was buying in over and over at the beginning (mostly due to taking bad beats), and was on pace for 36 (!!) entries if this continued. He ended up finally catching on with one of his buyins, so he "only" bought in 10 times.

It turned out that Negreanu was far from the only one who bought in 10+ times. In fact, four people bought in 12+ times, including Jesse Lonis (12), Stephen Chidwick (13), James Hopkins (13), and Mike Moncek (14).

And it wasn't just these high rollers who bought in a lot. It was calculated that the average player in the event bought in 2.7 times! That's absurd for a $26k event. The meant that the average player spent $70k on the WSOP Super Main! There were just 1071 unique players comprising a total of nearly 2900 entries.

Why is this a problem?

Two reasons:

1) Satellite winners and those who could only afford one buyin felt frustrated that they were constantly being put to the test by hyper-aggressive, deep pocketed pros (and other rich guys) who simply didn't care if they busted.

2) The super late registration allowed people (including these same repeatedly buying in pros) to leapfrog a large number of already busted players, and come in fairly close to the money. I don't know how close it was to the money when the registration closed, but as I said, this otherwise deep stacked event was allowing people to buy in when starting stack was 20 BB.



David Baker felt this was a "sliding doors moment", basically stating that this would be the point where players would either loudly rebel against this sort of format, or otherwise operators would decide this is the new normal and escalate it further:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/audavidb/status/2000668802904941034



Nadya Magnus, a Russian female poker pro who is mostly liked, but occasionally been in controversy when donating money to bad people (Jami Lafay, Bryn Kenney). was extremely unhappy with the entire experience:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/NadyaKGB/status/2000983928547488024

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/NadyaKGB/status/2000983932242669631


Even though I sometimes disagree with Nadya, I mostly agreed with her sentiments here. I'll explain in the next post.

[Dan Druff]

Let's discuss the venue first.

Atlantis is what I consider a fake luxury resort. It's got a nice setting with the beach and light-blue Caribbean water, and the Mayan temple inspired towers look really cool from the outside.

I will confess that when I first saw commercials on TV for Atlantis in the '90s, I thought it looked awesome. When a co-worker of mine went there on vacation in 2002, I was jealous.

The co-worker came back and showed everyone pictures of him swimming the blue water and seemingly having a good time. I said to him, "Looks like a great resort!"

He paused and then said. "Not really. I mean... it was okay. I guess I had a good time. Just... a lot of things were disappointing. Not what I expected. But I don't want to be negative here, let's not talk about that!"

This was an early form of an "Instagram Versus Real Life" moment, even though Instagram did not yet exist, nor did any social media.


But that guy's comments always stuck with me, because he was a middle-class guy with middle-class standards, and yet this supposed "luxury" resort disappointed him. And this was in 2002. Since then, there's been 23 more years of wear!

Indeed, Atlantis has a lot of issues. The food is notoriously expensive and tastes mediocre at best. The rooms are rundown and in need of renovation, though I hear the "Cove" tower (the most expensive one) is fairly nice. The service is slow, even by Bahamas standards, and employees there range from disdainful to apathetic. You don't get the "great service at a luxury resort" vibe. You get the "staff is constantly annoyed with you" vibe. Nobody is outright rude, but you can tell nobody gives a shit if you're happy, and most of their policies are extremely rigid without exceptions.

Is it a terrible place? No. In fact, if you get a comp or a good deal, and you keep your expectations low, you can have a nice trip there. It's just not a high-end or trip-of-a-lifetime experience. As I said on X, it's a soulless megaresort mostly aimed at middle class American schlubs, who are used to mediocre service and treatment. There are many Caribbean resorts which are far better, including in the Bahamas itself.

There's also a theft problem. Bahamas is a poor country, and without a strong emphasis on service, some employees steal.

Dylan Weisman claimed that $2k was stolen out of his room, presumably by the maid. Keep in mind that Weisman has plenty of money, and was not making excuses for shooting off backer funds, or anything like that. Also, in the same thread I linked, people complained about their LAUNDRY getting stolen there, in previous years! LOL!!!

So when you are traveling to what is supposed to be both a memorable vacation and poker venue -- a place they literally call "Paradise" -- you expect more than what Atlantis gives. And when it doesn't live up to what you expect, disappointment rushes over you, especially if you also lost money there as Nadya did.


Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

Now, I don't think the problems at Atlantis are significantly worse than in other years, as I've heard a lot of these service/food/room complaints dating all the way back to the 2000s. Recall that even my 2002 co-worker came back with a similar impression.

So why is this suddenly a problem in 2025?

Because it's also compounded with a chaotic and frustrating Super Main Event structure, which allowed deep-pocketed pros to pervert the entire concept of a main event style tournament, and left people feeling like they were playing more of a lottery and less of a contest of skill.

Allowing unlimited rebuys and late registration in small buyin events like $300 is also not good, but it's more understandable. At least you don't need to have super deep pockets to enter a lot of times, if you want.

However, at "main event" type tournaments, it has always been considered bad form to allow unlimited rebuys, as those are supposed to be more of a showcase of skill, and less about being able to fire wildly until you finally get lucky and build a stack.

The biggest problem was the very late registration allowed. This especially made people feel like rich pros could simply buy their way into the later stages, no matter what happened with their previous buyin attempts.

Recall that tournaments were originally conceived to be the great equalizer in poker. Everyone would start with the same stack, and could not rebuy. The person who could barely afford the buyin and a billionaire were on the same footing, with the identical opportunity. Over time that concept has eroded, but there was always some semblance of order to major series main events. Note that the Vegas WSOP Main is still a freezeout event.

Nadya's impression that it was depressing to see the rapid-firing degeneracy is understandable. However, I find it depressing for a different reason. It isn't depressing at all if a rich pro like Texas Mike spends $364k on a $26k event. It's much more depressing to watch the regular guys -- satellite winners, recreational players taking their shot, etc -- get run over by guys who just keep shipping it and don't care. At a cash game, this would be a great opportunity. At a $26k tournament, where you can only afford one shot, it's frustrating, and presumably not what you expected.

So picture Joe Businessman from Iowa who books a trip to Atlantis and plays the Super Main. He is wowed by the beautiful exterior pictures, and imagines both a highly memorable luxury vacation and a fun high stakes event. Instead, he gets a rundown room, eats shitty expensive food which takes forever to arrive, deals with disdainful resort employees, and loses on level 3 to a guy shipping J8o over his KK preflop. Do you think Joe goes home feeling good about the experience? Big nope.

[Tellafriend]

anyone banging around in 26k poker tourneys should be in a saphire suite at the cove. they are quite spacious, comfortable, and offer incredible views.

service: that's the bahamas and for that matter most of the Caribbean unless you go to a small, ridiculously expensive resort.

food: if you don't know where to go on property, yep, it's just more of the same slop. but if you do know and aren't in a hurry, thinking you will get a fine meal at Carmine's or at a kyosk by the pools, there are several good spots to have some fresh fish, etc.


water is crystal clear. though would be chilly this time of year.


don't misunderstand me, it's not a 5*, but if your expectations are in the right area, its fine. That said, Baha Mar is a far nicer, newer place. It's price point is not that different from Atlantis, a little higher, but it would be my recommendation b/n these two.


poker players bitch about everything in my experience, unless they are winning.


for a different perspective:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/PhilLaak/status/2001051343142748490

[Dan Druff]

Yeah my point is that if you're going to center it around a $26k Main Event where the average expenditure is $70,200, you might as well plop this thing in a better place (like the aforementioned Baha Mar), even if you put it somewhere elsewhere than Bahamas.

I know there's a capacity issue at some nice places, to where a large tournament simply wouldn't work. But there's plenty of places it would.

Poker players do like to bitch, especially when losing (you should see Commerce and The Bike players!), but they did happen to hit on some valid points there.

With that said, I have considered taking a little non-poker trip to Atlantis with my Caesars Diamond benefit, because I can get it fairly cheap, provided the flights don't set me back a ton. I'm a big "expectations" guy. If I expect something to be flawed, and I'm not paying a whole lot for the experience, I can still leave satisfied even if it does indeed have real issues. If I'm expecting something wonderful and it turns out to be mediocre, I'm incredibly disappointed. If I expect something mediocre and it turns out good/great, I'm thrilled.

I think the expectation gap is what happened here. Some players unfamiliar with Atlantis were expecting it to be a lot nicer than it is (especially given how it's promoted), and they were disappointed. Some players were expecting the Super Main Event to be similar to the Vegas Main Event, and were shocked by the indiscriminate firing by rebuy-happy pros, and additionally shocked by the long late reg period.

[Tellafriend]

Yeah my point is that if you're going to center it around a $26k Main Event where the average expenditure is $70,200, you might as well plop this thing in a better place (like the aforementioned Baha Mar), even if you put it somewhere elsewhere than Bahamas.

I know there's a capacity issue at some nice places, to where a large tournament simply wouldn't work. But there's plenty of places it would.

Poker players do like to bitch, especially when losing (you should see Commerce and The Bike players!), but they did happen to hit on some valid points there.

With that said, I have considered taking a little non-poker trip to Atlantis with my Caesars Diamond benefit, because I can get it fairly cheap, provided the flights don't set me back a ton. I'm a big "expectations" guy. If I expect something to be flawed, and I'm not paying a whole lot for the experience, I can still leave satisfied even if it does indeed have real issues. If I'm expecting something wonderful and it turns out to be mediocre, I'm incredibly disappointed. If I expect something mediocre and it turns out good/great, I'm thrilled.

I think the expectation gap is what happened here. Some players unfamiliar with Atlantis were expecting it to be a lot nicer than it is (especially given how it's promoted), and they were disappointed. Some players were expecting the Super Main Event to be similar to the Vegas Main Event, and were shocked by the indiscriminate firing by rebuy-happy pros, and additionally shocked by the long late reg period.

i think you are right about capacity issues. there are a very few places that can accommodate 1000s of players and their families on top of their ordinary guests. Very few in my travels. Then you need a country that allows gambling. offhand, honestly, i can't think of a single one. Maybe the Marriott at Aruba. Or somewhere in Mexico, but you may have a whole new set of problems with that choice.


i don't know how it was promoted, but folks will always oversell.


dd, you will probably not like this current iteration of Atlantis. i haven't been in a couple of years, but generally the place is not close to the glory days i remember fondly. spend the jew wallet and got to bm. if you are going to let your son enjoy the water slides etc and blue water in the ocean and want to use the comp, research where some great fish spots are off property, then take your family and you will enjoy it. don't expect much in the way of back-end comps, lol.


again, if you are firing this kind of coin, upgrade -

[Dan Druff]

Well, I don't want to make this a "Should Druff vacation at Atlantis" discussion, but I'll give you a response.

Last I checked, Caesars Diamond gives you a nice discount at Atlantis, to where it would be substantially cheaper to go there than Baha Mar, even if I upgraded to the Cove at Atlantis.

I would not go to Atlantis and pay the standard rates. I'd prefer a nicer resort, even if a little more expensive.

If I were to go to Atlantis, it would be one of those "I'm getting such a good deal, I can't pass it up" sort of things. The main reason I haven't done it is due to the hassle of flying there, which is a pain in the ass from LA.

BTW, even high end resorts can have fail. I've personally experienced it. There was some major fail at a nice resort I visited in Jamaica a few years ago. They were doing LOUD construction 24/7, shoved me in one of the rooms right next to it, and were "too full" to move me elsewhere. The worst part was that the construction was long-planned, had been going for 3 months, and my reservation was made over a year prior. Had they called me and said, "Yeah, sorry, you're gonna be in a room facing super noisy construction we started a few months ago, do you still want to come?", I'd have said no and cancelled. Instead they waited for me to arrive and discover the bad news myself.

This was an expensive place which should have known better, but they were too greedy.

For reference, my dad ran into the exact same thing 2 years prior at a different place in Jamaica, but they were responsible enough to call him way in advance and warn him, and offer him a 50% discount if he was willing to tolerate it. He said no and they cancelled it. So I'm not out of line with my expectations.

I did get them to move me 2 days in, and eventually negotiated a huge Jew discount over the whole thing, so it had a happy ending. But the basic rule of thumb is that the lower end the place, the more potential disappointment you'll face.