The controversy surrounding the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Millionaire Maker event is largely complete, as both the WSOP and sweepstakes operator ClubWPT Gold have announce their decisions regarding poker pro Jesse Yaginuma’s win last week.
WSOP pays players but awards no bracelet
The WSOP announced it was investigating heads-up play between Yaginuma and runner-up James Carroll after questions arose regarding collusion.
Yaginuma was part of a promotion from sweepstakes poker site ClubWPT Gold that awarded an additional $1 million if he managed to win the event. Though he began at a significant chip disadvantage, his aggressive play and lots of folding by Carroll led to him winning the event.
On Monday, the WSOP announced it will pay both players, but it will withhold the bracelet. Yaginuma has previously won three online WSOP bracelet events, but this was his first live bracelet victory.
This is the first time the WSOP has declined to award a bracelet in the wake of cheating concerns. However, it is the second time this summer that an event ended without a bracelet winner. Last month, the WSOP had to cancel an online bracelet event midway through and pay out the remaining field after technical difficulties made it impossible for the event to play to a conclusion.
In addition to not awarding a bracelet, the WSOP chose to evenly split the payouts for Carroll and Yaginuma rather than pay the $1.25 million and $1 million paydays for first and second place listed in the payouts.
ClubWPT Gold will honor Yaginuma’s $1M payday
In addition to the seven-figure score from the WSOP, Yaginuma is also going to receive the $1 million bonus from ClubWPT Gold even though he technically did not win the bracelet after all.
ClubWPT Gold was undeterred by the controversy and still plans to offer three more opportunities for players to reap a seven-figure payday at the WSOP, including if someone wins the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event later this month.
The one remaining question mark to the dramatic event is whether or not Carroll and Yaginuma will be in the field for the Main Event or tournaments being offered in the remainder of the poker tournament series.
Unclear if players banned from WSOP
The WSOP has not publicly disclosed whether or not the pair have been banned from future WSOP events.
GGPoker, the new owner of the WSOP brand, has banned players from its platform when caught cheating.
Bracelet winner and GGPoker Integrity Ambassador Fedor Holz intimated on social media at the time that those banned from the GGPoker site would also be banned from live WSOP events.
While some other tours like the RunGood Poker Series and PokerGO Tour have taken the step of banning suspected cheaters such as Ali Imsirovic, the WSOP never followed suit when under the Caesars Entertainment banner.
