The WSOP Bracelet Event Where Nobody Won
The 2025 WSOP has been full of great stories - but a scandal that garnered mainstream media attention will always be part of its history.
Faced with a potentially unwinnable situation, the World Series of Poker got the resolution to the Millionaire Maker scandal right.
And then fumbled the bag.
As the entire poker world knows, the heads-up portion of the Millionaire Maker event ended in controversial fashion as Jesse Yaginuma overcame a 9-1 chip deficit to defeat James Carroll and capture his fourth WSOP bracelet in as many years and take home the $1.25 million first place prize. Yaginuma’s win also meant he earned a $1 million bonus from ClubWPT Gold for being a Gold Rush ticket holder.
While Yaginuma denied in his post-win interview that any deal was made between he and Carroll, the final table was streamed on PokerGO and viewers at home - professional and amateur players alike - quickly drew their own conclusions as Yaginuma steamrolled Carroll in pot after pot with little or no pushback from Carroll. Not long after Yaginuma completed those interviews, the WSOP announced they were investigating the outcome and that prize money was being withheld pending the results.
On Monday night, four days after the conclusion of the event, the WSOP announced they had wrapped up the investigation, which also included Nevada Gaming Control Board and Caesars Entertainment officials.
“We have concluded that in order to uphold the integrity of the game and to uphold our official WSOP Tournament Rules, no winner will be recognized and no bracelet will be awarded for this year's tournament. The remaining prize pool will be split between the final two players,” the statement, which was posted on the WSOP X account, read.
Unless mandated by the NGCB or had WSOP discovered indisputable evidence of Carroll and Yaginuma soft-playing prior to heads-up, the WSOP was always going to pay out the money. As David Lappin opined, not doing so would be “brand suicide”.
On first read, it felt like WSOP landed on a fair and equitable way to handle this situation. Splitting the remaining prize pool evenly really doesn’t accomplish much as Carroll and Yaginuma, if they did agree to some sort of deal, would already have determined who was getting what. Removing the bracelet from the event feels logical since the heads-up portion of the event was no longer a competition.
The immediate reaction from the poker community was somewhat split, but many people seemed to feel that the outcome was fair in part because it didn’t bring punishment down on the players involved. It seemed like the WSOP had found a zero-sum solution that allowed them, the players involved, and the community at large to move on.
However.
Rumors quickly began circulating that the players had been given lifetime bans from the WSOP. The official statement had no mention of a ban or any player punishment, but people with connections to the two players confirmed that both players were indeed each handed bans as punishment for breaking WSOP rules related to chip-dumping and/or collusion.
In all likelihood, the WSOP wanted to control the narrative and avoid headlines that read “WSOP Bans Two Players” and instead wanted coverage to follow closer to what the two biggest English-language poker media companies landed on.
No Bracelet Awarded to Milly Maker Winner Following Alleged Chip Dumping Scandal -PokerNews
No winner, no bracelet - WSOP makes historic decision after major controversy - Poker.org
“Scandal” and “controversy” aren’t usually great words to read about your company in an article, but it certainly beats being thought of as the company that bans customers. Nobody at the WSOP could possibly have thought that word wouldn’t get out that Yaginuma and Carroll are persona-non-grata at poker’s biggest event and they should have included the details of the ban in the original statement. Now it feels like they’re hiding something.
Caesars Entertainment, which sold the WSOP to GGPoker last year, likely had a large say in the ban. Once NGCB got involved, Caesars had a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interests of their company. As the host property for the WSOP, they’re ultimately responsible for making sure nothing at the WSOP runs afoul of NGCB standards and regulations.
The resolution also allowed the WPT to get one last dunk on their rival in the matter. The WSOP announcement had some poker fans asking if Yaginuma would still receive the $1,000,000 bonus from ClubWPT Gold since technically, he didn’t win the tournament. Gary Payton never gave Shawn Kemp an alley-oop so sweet.
While they get to look like the good guys here for paying the bonus, WPT still has some responsibility to bear here. The goal of the promotion was attention for ClubWPT Gold leading to poker players signing up with the hope of winning a Gold Rush ticket and being eligible for that $1,000,000. They had to have known two (or more) players chopping an event to secure the bonus was possible. Any chaos caused for their largest competitor in the aftermath of such a scenario wasn’t the intention, but it also wouldn't be unwelcome given the war the two companies have been waging for the past three years.
That chaos, at least partially, ultimately resulted in Yaginuma and Caroll no longer being able to play WSOP events moving forward. Sure, both players are walking away with some share of nearly $3.3 million, but both are professional poker players and still have plenty of poker left in their respective careers. Not being able to play in the WSOP may ultimately cost them money in the long run.
The WSOP Main Event starts in less than 24 hours and the poker media news cycle will likely swallow this controversy up and move past it. But the 2025 WSOP, which has been full of fantastic stories throughout, will always be remembered in part for this scandal. In the end, the WSOP, Yaginuma, Carroll, and even WPT ended up mirroring the official results of the Millionaire Maker itself: nobody won.