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The Irish Open has won Best Stand-Alone Festival at the prestigious Global Poker Awards in Las Vegas.
The Irish Open is the longest-running No Limit Texas Hold’em poker tournament outside of Las Vegas and continuously breaks its own records for the largest – and richest – poker event in Ireland.
JP McCann and Paul O’Reilly, who took over the running of the festival in 2016, both flew out to Vegas for Saturday night’s glittering awards ceremony, the 6th Annual Global Poker Awards.
The 2024 Irish Open Festival featured 35 different events with the Main Event breaking its own records with 3,233 entries, creating a giant prize pool of €3,152,175. The €500,000 guaranteed Mini Irish Open attracted 5,320 entries to become Ireland’s largest ever tournament. There were record-breaking fields in almost every event and, across the whole festival, players were awarded more than €7.5 million in prize money.
Other award winners at Saturday’s ceremony, held at the PokerGO® Studio at Aria Resort & Casino, included Irish Open photographer Danny Maxwell along with Benjamin Spragg for Best Streamer, Marle Spragg for Best Short-Form Content Creator, and Irish Open stalwarts Barny Boatman, David Lappin and Dara O’Kearney. Francine Watson, Executive Producer of live streams for Irish Open sponsor PokerStars was also recognised with Best Industry Person.
Irish Open organiser Paul O’Reilly said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to win this award. As anyone who has played the Irish Open knows, this event really has no rival! The atmosphere is unique and we are expecting absolutely massive numbers at this year’s festival. We wish to extend our thanks to all our colleagues who work on creating the festival as well, of course, as the thousands of players who come to compete.
“We are beyond excited for the 2025 Irish Open which looks set to be one of the biggest poker festivals in Europe with nearly 70 different tournaments and €4.5 million in guaranteed prize pools.”
This year the Irish Open is celebrating its 45th anniversary from April 10 to April 21. The festival will feature a ton of new events including a brand new €1,000,000 guaranteed Luxon Pay Mystery Bounty event as well as greatly increased guarantees for the €250 buy-in Irish Open – now at €1,000,000 – and a €2.5 million guarantee for the €1,150 buy-in Main Event.
The Global Poker Index® is live tournament poker’s ranking authority with the Hendon Mob Poker Database now comprising over 550,000 live poker tournaments and 4.5 million individual results. The Hendon Mob Championship is one of the Irish Open’s most popular tournaments; this year, the event has been extended to two days and gets underway on Tuesday, April 15.