Dates for the 2020 World Series of Poker were announced on Wednesday, and the 51st WSOP is scheduled for May 26 through July 15, 2020.

The 2020 WSOP will once again be held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, with 51 action-packed days of poker planned, despite the recent sale of the property. Although the full schedule of events is yet to be released, the WSOP did give the dates for the WSOP Main Event, the BIG 50, and the Seniors Championship.

Main Event Scheduled for July 1-14

The 2020 WSOP Main Event runs July 1-14. It kicks off on Wednesday, July 1, for the first of three starting flights. The second and third flights are scheduled for Thursday, July 2, and Friday, July 3, respectively. Competitors to advance from either of the first two flights will resume action on Saturday, July 4, and those to advance from the third flight will play their Day 2 on Sunday, July 5.

All remaining entrants will combine into one field on Monday, July 6. Play is scheduled to continue each day through Friday, July 10, when it is anticipated that the final table will be reached. The final players will have an off day on Saturday, July 11, before resuming the competition on Sunday, July 12. A winner is expected to be crowned on Tuesday, July 14.

The 2020 WSOP Main Event will look to draw off the success that was delivered in 2019, when it attracted the second largest field size in the event’s history at 8,569 entries. It was only the second time ever that the field size for the WSOP Main Event topped 8,000 entries, and it was the fourth consecutive year that the Main Event field size increased.

The 2019 WSOP Main Event winner was Hossein Ensan, who took home the mammoth $10 million first-place prize.

BIG 50 Scheduled for May 28-June 4

The beginning of the 2020 World Series of Poker will feature the incredibly popular $500 buy-in BIG 50 tournament. It’s the second year for this event and big things are expected after the 2019 edition absolutely shattered the record books with 28,371 entries. The 2020 WSOP BIG 50 is scheduled to start on Thursday, May 28, and wrap up on Thursday, June 4.

In 2019, it was Femi Fashakin finishing in first place from the enormous field. Fashakin took home the lion’s share of the $13.509 million prize pool, winning $1.147 million.

Seniors Champions Scheduled for June 18-21

The third event that WSOP officials did confirm in the announcement is the $1,000 buy-in, single reentry Seniors Championship. Scheduled to take place June 18-21, the WSOP Seniors Championship is open to all participants age 50 or older.

In 2019, the WSOP Seniors Championship drew 5,916 entries. Howard Mash, a 50-year-old financial advisor from Florida was triumphant, scoring $662,594.

Online Satellites Already Running

At the time of the announcement, the start of the 2020 WSOP was five and a half months away, so there’s plenty of time to get ready for what should be another record-setting series. The 2019 WSOP was the biggest ever, with 187,298 total entries and more than $293 million in prize pool money generated.

The 2020 edition is likely going to set new records, and part of the reason why is because online satellites are already running on WSOP.com in Nevada and New Jersey.

Will Pennsylvania Be Involved?

Pennsylvania could certainly be involved with the 2020 WSOP, at least to some capacity. With regulated online poker now up and running in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State could become a player when WSOP.com is up and running, although there is no WSOP.com online client available in Pennsylvania at the time of this announcement.

When WSOP.com becomes available in Pennsylvania, we should expect there to be online satellites running that will function to qualify players for the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. What we shouldn’t expect is for PA online poker players to be able to play in online gold bracelet events with players from Nevada and New Jersey from within Pennsylvania state lines.

Although Nevada and New Jersey share player pools, Pennsylvania is not yet involved in any interstate compacts, so they’ll likely have to wait to compete for an online gold bracelet from within the State of Pennsylvania.