WSOP Employees Event Controversy Continues

A seemingly minor tweak to the WSOP’s $500 Casino Employees event, has sparked a fiery social media clash between dealers and poker content creators, just as the 2025 series nears. 

Right but it seems they changed it this year from being a “casino employee” to “industry employee.” The latter is much more broad terminology and seems it could encompass a variety of professions that are loosely affiliated with the industry rather than direct casino employment.

— George Swooney (@GeorgeSwooney) April 8, 2025

What was once a fun, exclusive tournament for casino workers is now a battleground over who truly belongs in poker’s industry and contributes to the running of the prestigious World Series of Poker.

The reason, for those who don’t follow poker news so closely, is that the $500 Casino Employees event has been renamed as the Industry Employees event for this year, changing who is eligible to play.

A minor adjustment, you might think, but not so in the eyes of an increasingly angry section of the community.

I heard back and poker bloggers, vloggers, streamers, etc are all eligible to play the Industry Employees Event. https://t.co/wNqes36AP4

— Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath) April 9, 2025

A Bit of History

This event started life back in 2000, before the poker boom began, as the Dealers World Poker Championship. That’s right, dealers, not casino workers.

Dave Alizadeth outlasted 109 entrants to bag a bracelet, which he probably deserved mostly for having to play limit hold’em for more than 30 minutes.

A couple of years later, the event had expanded to include all casino employees, such as floor staff, proposition players, and others.

Over time, the event grew in popularity, peaking in 2006 with a field of 1,232 entrants. But throughout the boom years, we did see recognisable faces from the poker world taking part in this event.

One such player was Pat Poels, the holder of two WSOP gold bracelets. As far as we can see, there wasn’t any furore over his inclusion in the tournament.

The idea of this event being closed, is that it levels the playing field for a group of non-professional players to challenge for a prestigious bracelet.

But this switching of casino employees to industry employees is being mooted as a way for some hardened professionals to infiltrate this once a year event. Vloggers, you see, are viewed by the WSOP organisers as a part of the industry, but many of them are also pros.

With last year’s event attracting 1,189 players, the prize pool is considerable and maybe worth it to an industry worker who isn’t a full professional but also likely way ahead of the average dealer with his game.

Let Casino/Cardroom employees have their own event. There are 100 other events for people to vlog about. https://t.co/t0FpB4tvee

— Doug Polk (Code Doug) (@DougPolkVids) April 9, 2025

Wouldn’t You Prefer to Play a Star or Two?

But really, how many of these potential interlopers are we likely to see with this change? Not many, and the reality is that you could drop Phil Ivey in this field and you’d be surprised at how little your chances change before the first hand is dealt.

And what about those casino workers who’ve long dreamed of squaring up against one of the game’s big names?

Doug Polk as a content producer falls into one of these new categories and even though he said let casino employees have their own event, surely many of the media workers should be eligible. The live reporters work long hours and play an important role in the series.

Good luck to all the industry employees this WSOP https://t.co/kBekjpuuhc pic.twitter.com/XVvZtaSrmo

— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) April 9, 2025

Las Vegas dealer Leyla Rogers spoke to PokerOrg, saying that she thinks the event is supposed to be about a bit of fun before the long slog of dealing for grueling hours every day begins.

She did concede that reporters or media should qualify to play, but added that bloggers and vloggers should not as they are most professional level players.

It’s unlikely that everyone will be happy for this year’s event, and we’ll be brave enough to predict that there will be at least one unwelcome “pro” in the field causing a stink.

To end with, just consider how much the poker landscape has changed since Chris Moneymaker did the impossible in 2003. This event switched from dealers to all casino staff soon enough.

And with the rapid expansion of the poker media, surely many of those who work in this niche deserve inclusion for their efforts. This is said without any bias, only to raise a talking point about a change that is currently a hot topic.