2025 WSOP Fantasy Draft: $5,000 in Prizes in New Format

Following the World Series on GipsyTeam isn’t just exciting — it can be profitable, too. Our traditional fantasy draft kicks off next week. As in previous years, the format mirrors the Daniel Negreanu fantasy draft, but with one key difference: anyone can participate. All you need is a GipsyTeam account.

This year’s prize pool has been increased to $5,000, thanks to support from our long-time sponsor GT+ (a service for professional poker players) and new partner FunFarm, the largest tournament poker school. We're grateful for their backing!

Fantasy Draft Rules

The core rules remain unchanged. Each participant will draft a team of 8 poker players, selected from a pool based on the Daniel Negreanu draft results in Las Vegas on May 27. The total budget is 200 points. Player prices are determined by their draft value, and no substitutions are allowed — once your team is set, it's locked in.

As the WSOP unfolds, your players will earn points based on their performance. The top scorers will split $4,000 from the main prize pool.

To keep things fresh and offer more chances to win, we're introducing a new element: "Player of the Quarter." Every 25 WSOP events, you’ll get the chance to pick a single player you think will score the most points in that block.

Correct picks earn you a seat in a special $250 freeroll. And if five or fewer players guess correctly, they’ll split the entire prize pool — no need to share with a crowd. So think beyond the obvious stars like Negreanu and Shaun Deeb; picking a lesser-known “dark horse” could earn you the whole pot.

Important Dates & Deadlines

We’ll publish the full prize distribution and player selection mechanics early next week in this same announcement. Be sure to bookmark the page and follow our social channels (linked below) so you don’t miss out.

🟠 Key Note: The first World Series of Poker event — Flight 1A of the $1,000 Mystery Millions — begins on May 27. This tournament will not count toward the fantasy contest to give everyone time to build their teams.
🕛 Deadline: Finalize your team by 00:01 on May 29.

We recommend starting your prep now. You can find past results and player stats on the 25KFantasy website. Need inspiration? Check out the top all-time performers in the Negreanu draft leaderboard.

Every year, Daniel Negreanu drafts his own fantasy team, buys pieces of other rosters to spur action, and throws down hefty side bets—often for sums that dwarf the contest’s prize pool. Historically, those wagers have gone poorly for him.

That narrative briefly shifted in 2022. Negreanu’s squad cashed for the first time and led the standings until the Main Event, where two of Maria Ho’s players vaulted her past him in the bonus round. Daniel still collected $100,000 for second place and scooped almost all of his side action. In his vlog he estimated a potential $500,000 payday had he actually taken first.

In 2023, he fell just outside the prizes—finishing 6th of 20—but again booked a profit thanks to side bets.

Last year, however, the old pattern returned. Negreanu ended 16th of 19 and dropped every wager; the loss was large enough that he chose not to reveal the figure. (Sergey Rybachenko alone beat him three times.)

Notably, Daniel now avoids bidding wars for the priciest stars. His top purchase last year was Nick Schulman at 66 points. In a recent interview, he confirmed he intends to stick with that cost-conscious strategy for the upcoming draft.

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Basic Scoring System

Players earn points based on their placement in each World Series tournament:

Additional Rules

• – Online tournaments, the tournament of champions, the casino staff tournament and the team tournament are non-competitive and no points are awarded in them.
• – Women's tournament and senior tournaments are counted in the same way as regular tournaments.
• – To earn points, the player must get into the prize zone.
• – In tournaments with a buy-in less than 1k, points are awarded at a coefficient of 0.5.
• – In tournaments with a buy-in of 5k, points are awarded at a coefficient of 1.5.
• – In tournaments with a buy-in of 10k, points are awarded at a coefficient of 2.
• – In the main tournament, points are awarded at a coefficient of 3.
• – For every 1,000 entries into the tournament, the prize zone increases by 9 players.
• – Players receive an additional point for every 100 entries in the tournament. If there are 87 entries in the tournament, no bonuses are awarded, in a tournament with 1,265 entries – 12 bonus points, and in a tournament with 5,450 entries – 54. Buy-in odds do not apply to bonus points.

What's New This Year

Here’s the polished continuation with improved clarity, consistency, and writing flow, while preserving all original information. Dollar signs have been added to tournament guarantee amounts where appropriate:

Starting this year, new caps have been introduced for tournaments with buy-ins under $1,500 (previously, this applied only to events under $1,000). These caps include a 100-point maximum and a prize zone limit of 9 tables (81 players). This change was primarily implemented for massive-field events that can attract over 10,000 entries.

In 2023, five such events met that threshold:

• $1,500 Millionaire Maker
• $1,000 Mystery Millions
• $400 Colossus
• $300 Gladiators of Poker
• $10,000 Main Event

For example, last year’s $1,000 Mystery Millions drew 18,409 entries. Under the old rules, the top 180 finishers each received a 100-point bonus. This year, only the top 81 will receive that same bonus. In practical terms, that’s a sharp cut: last year, 11 players received the bonus; under the new format, only 6 would have.

Despite the appealing bonuses, these large-field events remain highly volatile and difficult to predict. As a result, savvy fantasy participants tend to avoid relying on them when assembling teams. The real battle among fantasy leaders is expected to take place in high roller events and mixed game championships.

This year’s WSOP schedule includes:

• 13 events with buy-ins of $25,000 or more
• 14 mixed game championships with $10,000 buy-ins

In these tournaments, bonus points are minimal — but points for finishing in the money are doubled thanks to a multiplier. In some cases, only drafted players reach the final table. One such instance occurred in last year’s $10,000 HORSE championship, where 4 of the top 6 finishers were fantasy picks.

That tournament saw 181 entries, and the winner, Maxim Pisarenko, earned 101 points (1 base point + 50 points × 2). Maria Ho, who placed 6th, received 51 points (1 + 25 × 2). Meanwhile, the player eliminated in 20th place scored only 2 points.

Another important update this year: every bracelet winner will receive a 25-point bonus, regardless of the event.

David Baker, who runs his massive ODB Draft every year, announced some big changes on Twitter this year :

– I will have some big announcements about my $500 ODB league later in the week. With the new draft date I’m exploring the option of not counting Mystery millions. This is going to be the best ODB fantasy league ever! Extra prizes and a title sponsor!!!!

A few days later, David announced the sponsor, sports betting site SurvivorSweat.com. They would be providing a prize pool for a separate freeroll. Teams that buy-in for the main draft will be entered automatically.

Ed. – Last year, this draft was dominated by teams under the abbreviation GT. As you might guess, it stands for GipsyTeam. And these teams were recruited by the author of this text, the recognized draft expert Alexander "iskander" Yelensky. He was a contender for first prize until the very end, but in the end, his teams took 3rd, 7th and 17th places. Mikhail "mikleler" Semin finished ninth last year.