Poker Writer
The #1 ranked GPI poker player in the world, Jesse Lonis, bet on himself to win the WSOP Main Event at 500-1 odds. Lonis put $2,000 down, which would have brought him a $1 million payday on top of the $10 million prize for first place. Despite that self-confidence, however, he was out of the tournament before the end of its second day.
That will come as a relief to fellow pro Mikita Badziakouski, who would have been on the hook for the million if Lonis had gone all the way.
I booked a bet $2,000 at 500/1 to win the @WSOP main event. Payout would be $1,000,000. How could I say no! If I lose 2k I won’t remember in a couple of days. If I win the bet I’ll remember the rest of my life. Mikita Badziakouski is the one that booked the bet. Legend 🦍😂
— Jesse Lonis (@JesseLonis) July 8, 2025
The 500-1 odds the two players agreed on happen to be the same ones that PokerScout theorized would be a fair line when the question came up before the start of the Series. At least one sportsbook was offering bets on Lonis at 16-1, which seemed unrealistic for an event with nearly 10,000 players.
PokerScout considered a variety of factors, including field size, past years’ Main Event winners, and Lonis’s skill, to arrive at 500-1. However, several responses to Lonis suggested that even 500-1 odds are too short for anyone to win the Main Event. Lonis acknowledged that, but was undeterred by the skepticism, stating in response:
I know it’s in minus EV, I just don’t give a ****
Confidence Alone Doesn’t Win the Main Event
Lonis’s confidence is part of what makes his game so effective. In this case, however, it wasn’t enough to see him through to a cash. He was eliminated in 2,143rd place toward the end of Day 2.
Fellow top pro Chance Kornuth, who finished in 16th in the 2021 Main Event, asked Lonis if he could book the bet for himself as well. However, Lonis had booked his bet early in the tournament, when he had just under a starting stack. Kornuth was looking for 500-1 odds after chipping up to 300,000, five times the number of starting chips.
He replied to Lonis’s post on X:
Got 300k. Can you ask Mikita if he will book it vs me too?
Kornuth made it slightly deeper into the event than Lonis. However, he would also meet his demise short of the money. He busted out on Day 3 on live stream at the PokerGO feature table, making an incorrect hero call on the river.
Who’s Still Alive on the Bubble?
Play ended on Tuesday night with 1,476 players left. All but 15 of those will receive at least $15,000, as this year’s Main Event will pay out 1,461 seats.
Let’s take a look at who’s still in the event on the bubble as Day 4 begins:
- The chip leader is Shotaro Kobayashi of Japan, a previously unknown player who bagged 1.97 million chips, or 246 big blinds, at the end of Day 3.
- Second-place is Max Neugebauer. The Austrian hasn’t made a huge impact at the US WSOP, but his sole bracelet comes from winning the WSOP Europe Main Event in 2023. The only player to win both the US and European Main Events is Phil Hellmuth, whose US championship win came in 1989, when the field consisted of only 178 players.
- There are two women among the top fifteen chip counts, which is notable in the male-dominated field. Juliet Hegedus is in third with 1.745 million, and Sylwia Studniarz of Poland is in thirteenth with 1.46 million. Hegedus final tabled this year’s WSOP Ladies Championship and came close to doing so last year. She also had a previous deep run in the Main Event in 2022, finishing 264th for $46,800. Studniarz’s most significant cashes are a 13th-place finish in the 2024 EPT Prague Main Event and a win in the 2023 EPT Barcelona Women’s Event.
- Few other big names have accumulated many chips so far, but there are 18 gold bracelets and a couple of notables to be found among the top 100 stacks. That includes Viktor Blom in 80th, considered one of the best players not to have won a WSOP Gold Bracelet yet. He’s also the only 25K WSOP Fantasy Draft player in the top 100. There’s also Will Kassouf in 87th, whose verbal antics during his 2016 Main Event run made him a well-known and polarizing figure. He’ll be looking to improve on that year’s 17th-place finish.
- It has not been a good year for the former Main Event winners. Only two remain: Greg Merson, who won in 2012 after making one of the greatest comebacks of all time, and Damian Salas, whose win came in 2020, when all but the final table took place online on GGPoker.
