For six weeks in the late summer of 2022, poker’s most prestigious brand ran its online arm at full tilt. The 3rd annual World Series of Poker Online, hosted at GGPoker from August 14 to September 27, put 33 gold bracelets on the line across buy-ins from $100 to $10,000 — every discipline from Limit Hold’em to Short Deck, from a $100 FLIP & GO to a $10,000 Heads-Up Championship. By the time the last hand was dealt, the series had crowned 33 champions, paid out tens of millions, and produced a couple of numbers the online game had never seen before. The winners’ circle carried real weight, too, with established names like Dimitar Danchev, Rui Ferreira, Amichai Barer, Daniele Sesta and David Yan all leaving with gold.

The Record-Setting Mystery Bounty

The first record arrived early. Event #7, the Million Dollar Mystery Bounty, carried a $10,000,000 guarantee and, for a $210 buy-in, a single $1,000,000 bounty hidden at random in the prize pool — the largest bounty ever offered in online poker. It drew a staggering 51,003 entries. When the envelopes were opened, the seven-figure prize didn’t go to the champion at all: ‘ItsRumcake’ busted in 713th place and still walked away with $1,000,630, the biggest single score of the series outside the Main Event. The tournament’s actual winner, ‘PH14’, earned $367,953 — proof that in a mystery bounty, finishing first and finishing richest are two very different things.

Thirty-Three Bracelets

Between the majors the bracelets came thick and fast. Markus Prinz banked the series’ biggest non-Main-Event prize, $1,188,098, in the $1,500 MILLIONAIRE MAKER (#13); David Yan took the $10,000 Super MILLION$ High Roller (#12) for $985,565. Germany’s Claas Segebrecht bookended the series with two bracelets — the opening Every 1 for War Relief charity event (#2), which sent aid to Ukraine, and, five weeks later, Beat the Pros (#31). Event #21, the $500 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship, went to Long Huanhua for $31,326, and the $400 COLOSSUS (#28) drew 10,090 runners, with Ourania Zarkantzia taking the $378,508 top prize. The fields were enormous top to bottom — the $100 FLIP & GO (#18) alone pulled 6,556 entries — but across every buy-in it was the bracelet, not the money, that players were chasing. The full roll of champions:

Event	Buy-in	Entries	Prize Pool	Champion	Top Prize
#1: The Housewarming NLH	$500	5,099	$2,422,025	S Schillhabel	$296,410
#2: Every 1 for War Relief	$1,111	730	$811,030	Claas Segebrecht	$102,152
#3: Limit Hold’em Championship	$2,500	124	$294,500	BruxoR10	$64,671
#4: Bounty Deepstack NLH	$1,050	986	—	JESUSYAAZY	$96,770
#5: 6-Handed Bounty NLH	$315	2,312	$693,600	Marklanders1	$60,714
#6: MONSTER STACK NLH	$800	1,797	$1,365,720	Jonas Lauch	$173,224
#7: Million Dollar Mystery Bounty	$210	51,003	$10,200,600	PH14	$367,953
#8: 6-Handed NLH Championship	$5,000	430	$2,042,500	Daniele Sesta	$400,213
#9: Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha	$525	1,142	$571,000	Amichai Barer	$60,889
#10: Heads Up NLH Championship	$10,000	128	$702,147	Dimitar Danchev	$327,668
#11: DOUBLE STACK Bounty NLH	$400	3,550	$1,349,000	Astor	$106,562
#12: Super MILLION$ High Roller	$10,000	593	$5,752,100	David Yan	$985,565
#13: MILLIONAIRE MAKER	$1,500	3,833	$6,706,050	Markus Prinz	$1,188,098
#14: Deepstack Championship NLH	$2,500	705	$1,674,375	Alnaz Zhdanov	$246,495
#15: LUCKY SEVENS Bounty	$777	1,778	$1,312,431	Pete Chen	$116,247
#16: Ultra Deepstack NLH	$1,000	1,156	$1,098,200	FerdaBois	$149,520
#17: THE BIG 500 NLH	$500	3,141	$1,491,975	Vincente Delgado	$174,497
#18: FLIP & GO NLH	$100	6,556	$1,303,305	PAUPAU	$143,247
#19: Pot-Limit Omaha Championship	$5,000	272	$1,292,000	Rui Ferreira	$287,736
#20: CRAZY EIGHTS Bounty NLH	$888	1,292	$1,621,399	quackhouse	$151,672
#21: Ladies NLH Championship	$500	362	$171,950	Long Huanhua	$31,326
#22: GGMasters HR Freezeout NLH	$1,050	2,372	$2,372,000	St@edtLer	$288,507
#23: PLOSSUS Bounty	$400	3,850	$1,463,000	Jose Castillo	$144,287
#24: Bounty NLH Championship	$2,100	985	$1,970,000	Winner51	$171,122
#25: Superstack Turbo Bounty NLH	$315	3,015	—	Be_LegendarY	$75,620
#26: DOUBLE CHANCE NLH [2-Stack]	$600	1,777	$1,012,890	Jans Arends	$129,745
#27: FIFTY STACK Bounty NLH	$1,500	1,597	$2,275,725	Mark Radoja	$95,460
#28: COLOSSUS	$400	10,090	$3,793,840	Ourania Zarkantzia	$378,508
#29: Short Deck Championship	$5,000	145	—	Benjamin Miner	$172,678
#30: 6-Handed Bounty NLH	$840	2,024	—	Joni Jouhkimainen	$66,004
#31: Beat the Pros Bounty Freezeout	$1,050	1,318	—	Claas Segebrecht	$54,315
#32: The Closer NLH	$500	2,304	—	Marc Radgen	$147,983
#33: WSOP Online Main Event	$5,000	4,984	—	Simon Mattsson	$2,793,574

The $10,000 buy-ins produced some of the fiercest final tables of the series. David Yan’s Super MILLION$ win (#12) came out of a 593-runner field that built a $5.75 million pool and guaranteed every finalist six figures; Dimitar Danchev took the 128-player Heads-Up Championship (#10) for $327,668; and Markus Prinz turned the $1,500 MILLIONAIRE MAKER (#13) into a seven-figure payday from a field of 3,833. Across Short Deck, Pot-Limit Omaha, Limit Hold’em, a dozen bounty formats and the flagship No-Limit events, the 2022 series spread its bracelets about as widely as the game allows.

The $20 Million Main Event

And then the centerpiece. In 2020, GGPoker’s WSOP Online Main Event had set a Guinness World Record for the largest prize pool in online poker history; the 2022 edition, a $5,000 buy-in guaranteeing $20,000,000, set out to do it again. A field of 4,984 blew past the guarantee, and when the final day played out on September 26, it was Sweden’s Simon Mattsson — already a seven-figure winner earlier that year — who outlasted them all for the bracelet and $2,793,574, the biggest prize of the 2022 World Series of Poker Online. For context, the 2020 Main Event champion had banked $3.9 million and the 2021 winner $2.5 million — Mattsson’s $2.79 million landed squarely in that elite company.

Thirty-three bracelets, tens of millions in prizes, a record-breaking million-dollar bounty and a multi-million-dollar Main Event: the 3rd World Series of Poker Online proved once more that the most prestigious name in poker travels just fine online.

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About the Author: Shawn Altbaum has been writing and editing in the online gaming industry since 2007, reporting live from the WSOP Main Event and conducting interviews with professional players. An active poker player, he combines industry expertise with firsthand knowledge of the games he covers. He currently serves as Global Head of Copywriting at NSUS Group, overseeing brand voice and content strategy across GGPoker and GGVegas.