Overlays Evaporate at WPT Global

16 Jul 2024

Jonathan Raab 16 Jul 2024

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WPT Global Tournament Liquidity Increasing
100% MTT Rake Returned Promotion Performing Well
WPT Global CEO Alex Scott hints that the Show Might Go On Beyond March

WPT Global Avoids Overlays as Tournament Liquidity Increases

Online poker site WPT Global has been a value hunters paradise for months, with vast numbers of tournaments missing their guarantees, quite often posting large overlays. The Sunday specials and WPT Live satellites have been particularly juicy, but overlays could be found at all times of day and night, throughout the entire weekly tournament schedule.

100% of MTT Fees Returned To Players in March

After the KO Series wrapped, amid heavy overlays, WPT Global launched an mtt promotion for March 2024 whereby 100% of fees on multi-table tournaments would be returned to players via three freerolls, each with six-figure prize pools. In order to gain entry to these freerolls, which take place on Sunday April 7th, players are required to take part in a minimum number of tournaments, at different buy-in levels.

Bronze $100,000 Freeroll - Play 30 MTTs or spend $250-$999 on MTT entries to qualify

Silver $150,000 Freeroll - Play 60 MTTs to or spend $1,000-$4,999 on MTT entries to qualify

Gold $350,000 Freeroll - Play 100 MTTs to or spend $5,000+ on MTT entries to qualify

If WPT makes more than $600,000 in mtt rake, then these prizepools will be even bigger, with 15% of all mtt fees going into the bronze freeroll prizepool, 25% into the silver and 60% into the gold.

Slow Start

For the first week of this promotion, there was a slight uptick in participation, however most of the regular tournaments and all of the daily and weekly specials, plus WPT live event satellites continued to miss their guarantees. The Crazy Sunday PKO even still had a $22k overlay on its $100k guarantee on March 10th. It seemed at first as if this promotion might not have been as eventful as it had initially promised to be,

The Train Picks Up Speed

However, during the second full week of the promotion it began to gain some traction and by the mid-point of the month, the Sunday Bump It Up specials all did remarkably well, with all three surpassing their guarantees and consequently receiving increased guarantees for the following Sunday.

Surely that would be it and the new targets would be a step too far? A return to overlay seemed like the most likely path to be taken. But no, remarkably the train kept on moving and the participation levels on Sunday 24th March set new records for Bump It Ups for the second week in a row.

On Marh 24th, the $110 Sunday Slam had 774 entrants, up over 100 on last week's 662. It smashed through its $73,250 guarantee and next week its been upped to $81,000. Similarly, the $330 Grand Slam and the $11 Mini Slam set performance records with 204 and 1,352 entants respectively.

Bump It Up A Little More

Here is the schedule of Daily and Sunday Bump It Up tournaments, with the newly increased guarantees.

Start Time	Buy-In	Tournament	Current Guarantee (March 25 2024)
2pm (UK) Daily	$55	Lucky Escalator PKO	Up to $20,000
8pm (UK) Daily	$22	Daily Escalator Turbo	$6,050
12.30am (UK) Daily	$110	Nightly Escalator PKO	Up to $25,000
9pm (UK) Sundays	$110	Sunday Slam	Up to $81,000
9.10pm (UK) Sundays	$330	Grand Slam	Up to $54,000
9.20pm (UK) Sundays	$11	Mini Slam	Up to $12,100

Perhaps the most astonishing increase in participation has been seen in the $110 Crazy Sunday PKO. Two weeks ago this tournament missed its $100,000 guarantee by $22,000 and in yesterday’s (Sunday March 24th) edition it not only met its guarantee, it destroyed it, with 1,575 entrants creating a prize pool of $157,500. The late night WPT package satellite which had been consistently missing its 3-package guarantee also performed well, meeting its guarantee with over 90 minutes of late registration still on the clock.

Is the Boss Happy?

He sure is. Speaking to PokerWired about the 100% rake returned promotion, WPT Global CEO Alex Scott said

The promo is going well so far, pretty much in line with our expectations and we're really happy. I'm really happy to see the performance of the weekly Sunday majors in particular.

Asked whether the total collected fees would exceed the $600,000 guaranteed in the promotion’s three freerolls, he added

It will be close! The best way to ensure that the free roll prize pools beat their guarantee is to play :-)

I would love to Alex, but WPT Global is not yet available in Malta, so that’s me scuppered! But perhaps in the future they will repeat it. Alex would not reveal yet whether there will be a repeat of the promotion, but he did allude to something exciting being planned for April.

Keep your eyes peeled in the next few days, because we have something exciting planned for April - and after that, who knows!?

Even though overlay is becoming scarcer on WPT Global, weekday tournaments are not performing as well as those on the weekend and there's still quite a few tournaments providing value for overlay hunters. There's still time to qualify for those freerolls, as the promotion continues all week, ending on Sunday 31st March.

New players can use the WPT Global Poker Promo Code WIRED when registering to get a welcome bonus of up to $1,200.