The 2026 Venetian DeepStack Championship has wrapped after eleven weeks of poker at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, closing out a 121 event schedule that paid out $22,947,285 against original guarantees of just over $16,000,000. The series ran from May 21 through August 2 and drew 28,595 entries across its numbered events, not counting satellites that fed into the bigger tournaments along the way.
That gap between the guaranteed total and the amount actually paid out, roughly $7,000,000 above the original floor, reflects a series that consistently outdrew expectations rather than one that needed the house to cover shortfalls. Where guarantees were missed, the Venetian still made good on $233,375 in overlay across the schedule, a relatively modest figure given the size of the series overall.
A Marathon Schedule Built for Grinders
Running 121 numbered events over eleven weeks means the Venetian DeepStack Championship functions less like a single festival and more like a season, giving regulars in Las Vegas a near daily reason to show up at the tables. That structure tends to favor players who can commit to the grind over a long stretch, and this year’s leaderboard reflected exactly that kind of graft.
Adel Kabbani, a player from France, put together the standout multi title run of the series, winning three separate events, numbers 38, 53, and 93, for a combined $22,644. It is not the kind of total that makes headlines on its own, but stringing together three titles across a field this size and this length of schedule is a different kind of achievement than a single big score, one built on consistency rather than a single deep run. San Diego’s Richard Kent backed that up with two titles of his own, in Events 46 and 97, worth a combined $13,932.
The Marquee Scores: MSPT Main Events Lead the Way
The series’ biggest individual paydays came from its Mississippi Stud Poker Tour crossover events. Peter Walsworth won the MSPT $1,100 Main Event, which drew 1,495 entries, for $168,494, while Adam Walton took down the MSPT $1,600 Heart Poker Championship, a 878 entry field, for $185,966. Those two results anchored the series’ headline moments and gave the DeepStack Championship its clearest crossover appeal with the wider MSPT tour audience that travels between regional stops.
Elsewhere on the schedule, Gerald Stogner won Event 37, an $1,100 no limit hold’em tournament that drew 1,669 entries, for $200,819, the single largest score of the entire series. Eric Bunch was not far behind, claiming Event 68, another $1,100 no limit hold’em event with 1,502 entries, for $185,933. Justin Arnwine rounded out the notable results with a win in the lower buy-in Event 108, a $600 no limit hold’em tournament with 307 entries, worth $25,048.
Reading the Series’ Overall Numbers
Taken together, the results paint a picture of a series with real depth beyond its two or three headline tournaments. Total entries of 28,595 across 121 events works out to an average field size in the low 200s per event, though the numbers skewed heavily toward the marquee MSPT stops and away from the smaller side events that filled out the daily schedule. That spread is fairly typical for a long running property series, where a handful of big buy-in flagship events draw the bulk of the field while dozens of smaller tournaments keep the room busy on quieter days.
Players trying to build a similar deep run through a long series, balancing bankroll across dozens of buy-ins rather than betting everything on one or two events, may find it useful to review Poker Pro Academy’s how to play poker fundamentals as a refresher before committing to a heavy tournament schedule of their own.
What Comes Next at the Venetian
The Venetian is not slowing down. Organizers have already announced the August DeepStack Showdown as the property’s next series, a 37 event schedule carrying $1,100,000 in guaranteed prize pools. It is a smaller commitment than the just concluded Championship, both in event count and total guarantees, positioning it as more of a bridge series before the next major push on the Venetian’s calendar.
For a room that has established itself as one of the steadier stops on the Las Vegas circuit outside of the WSOP window, wrapping an eleven week series nearly $7,000,000 over its original guarantees is a strong signal heading into the rest of the year. As always, tournament poker involves genuine financial risk, and players should treat buy-ins as entertainment spending rather than a guaranteed source of income, sticking to bankrolls they can afford to lose and taking advantage of responsible gaming resources where needed. Participation is restricted to players 18 and over.
