The second edition of the WSOP Paradise series is now behind us, once again held at Antlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, bringing 15 bracelet tournaments to the venue. This year, however, the WSOP teamed up with the Triton series to offer us two Triton bracelet tournaments.

The first edition of WSOP Paradise was held in 2023, and the 15 bracelet tournaments gave out total prize pools worth $70,019,540. Of that, the WSOP rake alone earned $3,753,520. The total number of entries came to 17,267, the average buy-in was $16,453 and the average prizepool per tournament was $4,667,970.

That was last year, and now let's take a look together at the recently completed December 2024 edition, which handily surpassed almost all of those numbers. The 15 tournaments generated total prize pools worth a whopping $160,756,135, of which the WSOP alone took home $13,011,175 in fees. The average buy-in shot up to $103,904, thanks in large part to the $525,000 buy-in Triton Million.

However, the tournaments this year saw fewer entries than last year, which is understandable given the high buy-ins. The total number of entries this year stood at 9,494 and the average prizepool per tournament was $10,706,412. This huge number can be mainly attributed to the Super Main Event with its 50 million guarantee and the Triton Million with its 48 million prizepool.

However, if we left out the two high buy-in Triton tournaments (Triton Million - buy-in $525,000 and Triton Main Event - buy-in $106,000), we would get an average buy-in of almost $25,000, which is still a huge increase over last year's average of $16,453.

Even though the Super Main Event finished with an overlay of $550,000, the organizers still made approximately $3 million from fees alone. They made even more from the Triton Million, where they pocketed up to $4.8 million. The Triton Main Event brought in more than $1 million for the organizers. Two online tournaments were also part of the WSOP Paradise schedule, which contributed another more than $900,000 to the organizers.

Let's compare those numbers to the WSOP in Las Vegas

For an overall comparison of how massive this year's WSOP Paradise was, and how much it put in the organizers' pockets, let's compare these numbers to the summer edition of the WSOP in Las Vegas.

WSOP 2024 offered up 99 bracelet tournaments with total prize pools worth more than $437 million. The average prizepool per tournament was $4.4 million and the average buy-in was $9,817. The total number of entries here came to 228,413, and the WSOP itself earned nearly $42 million in fees.

WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas has a high total cost to players and not just anyone can come here to play. The series is primarily for high roller players. In addition to the high cost itself, or the high buy-ins, the WSOP also charges additional administrative and loyalty fees above and beyond the standard rake here, which certainly doesn't make players happy. Despite this, WSOP Paradise in 2024 has been a huge success, attracting the best players in the world. Even competition like the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas or the popular EPT Prague has not threatened them.

All WSOP Paradise 2024 totals shown are purely from the 15 bracelet tournaments alone, one of which was a no-buy freeroll, and do not include any additional revenue for the organisers from satellites, side events or cash games.

Source - pokerfuse.com, pokernews, wsop, bfmtv.com, Tomas Stacha