Poker Writer
World Poker Tour Cyprus had a nearly $400,000 overlay to cap off several issues with recent WPT stops and the state of poker in Cyprus.
The $3,500 WPT Cyprus Championship had a $2 million guarantee and only garnered 520 entries to bring the generated prize pool to a little over $1.6 million, forcing the WPT to make up the difference. Adding in the staff fees and rake only got the pool to about $1.8 million, so there was still a shortfall of about $200,000.
In fact, that same rake may have driven some players away. WPT Cyprus raked $400 from the $3,500 entry, about an 11% rate. That’s well above the industry standard of around 8% for most similar buy-ins.
The 520 entries represented a roughly 33% decrease from the 775 entries from last year in the same WPT Cyprus event at Chamada Prestige Hotel & Spa.
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Travel Issues Plague Cyprus in 2026
The WPT Cyprus events have been plagued by travel issues in 2026. Worries over the U.S.-Iran conflict have spilled out over the entire Middle East and even as far as Cyprus, which has several close ties with a few countries on the Levant.
The worries led to the WPT postponing WPT Prime Cyprus scheduled for March. Even though this event in August went ahead, some of those same concerns may have persisted for players. It’s possible some eschewed traveling to Cyprus when they would have otherwise played.
Conflict with EPT Barcelona
Another factor that led to the smaller field in 2026 was overlap with European Poker Tour Barcelona, generally the largest poker festival in Europe.
In 2025, WPT Cyprus was held one week earlier, the week of Aug. 13-18. EPT Barcelona 2025 did not start until Aug. 18. So, the overlap was only one day, at the very start of the EPT event, and therefore did not make as big an impact.
But in 2026, the overlap of WPT Cyprus and EPT Barcelona happened right in the thick of the festival. Most Europe-based players had already made the trip to Spain. It coincided with the same weekend as the start of the EPT Barcelona main event. Therefore, WPT Cyprus had a much smaller pool of potential players.
Shrinking Entries Worldwide
While the percentage decrease in numbers was more drastic in WPT Cyprus, the drop could just be part of a wider reduction in entries in live poker events worldwide. The behemoth event in Europe, EPT Barcelona, also had fewer entries this year than it did in 2025. That one decreased by 10%, from 2,045 to 1,823.
The 2026 World Series of Poker main event saw a drop from its 2025 numbers as well, sinking from 9,735 to 9,208.
WPT Cyprus was not the largest decrease on the WPT calendar. That title belongs to another international WPT event, which saw a drastic reduction in numbers in February. WPT Cambodia in 2026 had 425 entries, which was a 43% decrease from its 750 entries in 2025.
