Deputy Editor
PokerStars disappointed stateside customers by announcing the cancellation of its annual flagship Championship of Online Poker (COOP) tournament series.
“We can confirm that we are not running a U.S. COOP this year, while we make important improvements to ensure the series is the best it can be,” an admin wrote in the company’s Discord. “The event will return in 2026, bigger and better than ever.”
It’s the latest example of the one-time market leader’s apparent deprioritization of the U.S. market.
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Poker Players Irritated, Frustrated By Cancellation
The news wasn’t met with great enthusiasm by PokerStars’ U.S. customers. The COOP has been one of the biggest online tournament series available to American players on legal poker sites. It has posted guarantees of about $7 million each of the past two years, and $4.5 million in 2022.
“They’ve completely given up the last few months,” one responder to the news said on X.
“Disappointing to see them fall off so hard,” said a Reddit user, who called PokerStars’ continued U.S. strategy a “clown show.”
Memes posted to the US Poker Community Discord server implied some players were thinking of taking their business elsewhere.
In 2022, PokerStars ran three separate COOP series, one each for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The 2023 and 2024 versions were a little more consolidated, with merged player pools for New Jersey and Michigan.
PokerStars Ontario had its own series, and that will reportedly continue as usual.
PokerStars Continues Losing Grip on US Market
The negative sentiment regarding PokerStars’ foray back into the U.S. has been reflected in the traffic data. Earlier this week, PokerScout reported that PokerStars has lost significant market share year over year. It has fallen into third place, with World Series of Poker and BetMGM essentially tied at the top.
A big catalyst for the drop has been a lack of urgency in merging stateside player pools. When Pennsylvania joined the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) in April, PokerStars’ competitors jumped on the chance to merge their player pools. More players means more liquidity and bigger guarantees, which begets still more players.
However, PokerStars has dragged its feet. It still has PokerStars PA ring-fenced into its own site. The operator cited “global priorities,” but players are steadily taking their business elsewhere.
PokerStars continues to invest in its live stateside offerings, and it rolled out its usual World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) schedule with a glittering $65 million in guarantees.
U.S. players have become restless and fed up with their treatment, though, and cancelling US COOPs won’t exactly give them a motivation to dust off their accounts. It’s going to be difficult to make the 2026 US COOPs “bigger and better than ever” if customers keep moving their bankrolls over to the competition.
Image Credit: dѧvid via Flickr (license)
