KAHNAWAKE, Que. - Before September, Mayukh Chakraborty's entire live poker résumé fit on a sticky note: two tournament cashes, worth a combined US$3,260.
On Sept. 10, the cybersecurity professional from North York, Ont., won the biggest poker tournament ever played in Canada.
Chakraborty took down the inaugural WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event at Playground Poker Club, just south of Montreal, outlasting 2,844 entries to claim C$1.5 million and a WSOP Circuit gold ring. He finished the job in an all-Canadian heads-up match against Benjamin Veenstra.
His win was the exclamation point on a remarkable run for Canadian poker. In Las Vegas this summer, two Canadians reached the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event, together earning more than US$5.5 million. Online, Ontario's regulated poker market posted a record month in the spring. And in Ottawa, the Supreme Court of Canada is weighing a case that could decide whether Canadian online players are ever reunited with the rest of the world.
A Main Event That Rewrote The Record Book
The WSOP Super Circuit Canada ran from Aug. 26 to Sept. 12 at Playground, the Kahnawake venue that has quietly become the centre of Canadian tournament poker. It was the first Super Circuit stop ever held in the country, part of an expanded partnership that brings three WSOP Circuit stops to Playground in 2026.
The C$5,000 buy-in Main Event carried a C$10-million guarantee, an enormous number by Canadian standards. It sailed past it. With 2,844 entries, the event produced a prize pool that the WSOP's official results list at C$12.69 million; the figure announced when registration closed was C$13.08 million. Either way, it was nearly three times the previous Canadian Main Event record of C$4.45 million, set at the same venue in August 2025 when the WSOP Circuit Main Event drew 1,978 entries.
The rest of the festival was just as big. According to industry reporting, the two-week series logged 14,784 entries and awarded roughly C$24.5 million in prize money, finishing more than 70 per cent above its combined C$14 million in guarantees. The C$500 Mini Main Event alone drew 3,484 entries across five starting flights, the largest field in Playground's history, and generated a C$1.47 million prize pool.
Those numbers matter well beyond one weekend in Quebec. They show that Canada, long seen as a feeder market that sends its best players to Las Vegas and Europe, can host a festival on the scale of a major international stop.
FROM TWO CASHES TO C$1.5 MILLION
The Main Event final table was stacked with experience. It included four-time WSOP bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion Chance Kornuth and England's Jack Salter, alongside a strong Canadian contingent.
Salter fell in third place for C$750,000, setting up a heads-up match between two Canadians: Chakraborty, playing just the third recorded live cash of his life, and Veenstra, a far more seasoned tournament player.
Chakraborty prevailed, taking home C$1.5 million, roughly US$1.08 million at current exchange rates. The WSOP summed up his leap from a few thousand dollars in career earnings to a seven-figure title in a two-word post on social media: "Life. Changed."
It is the kind of story poker's promoters love, and it is not a one-off. Recreational players with modest records routinely go deep in large-field events, because the bigger the field, the more likely it is that one of the hundreds of amateurs catches the right cards at the right time.
How Playground Became Canada'S Poker Capital
The Super Circuit didn't land at Playground by accident. The club, located in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake on Montreal's South Shore, has spent the past few years building a reputation as the country's premier tournament venue.
The numbers tell the story. When Playground hosted the WSOP Circuit Main Event in August 2025, it drew 1,978 entries, a Canadian record at the time. The WSOP responded by expanding the partnership to three Circuit stops at the venue in 2026. The spring stop, which ran from March 23 to April 7, featured a C$2,500 Main Event and a C$400 Mini Main Event with a C$500,000 guarantee. The late-summer Super Circuit then raised the stakes to a C$5,000 buy-in and a C$10-million guarantee.
The formula works for several reasons. Playground sits within easy reach of Montreal and Ottawa, and a short drive or flight for players from Toronto and the U.S. Northeast. Its schedules mix affordable events with high-roller tournaments, drawing both recreational players and touring professionals. And the WSOP brand, now operated in partnership with GGPoker, brings online satellite qualifiers who might never otherwise travel to a live event.
For Canadian players, the practical upshot is a steady calendar of major tournaments on home soil, with buy-ins that start at a few hundred dollars. Players new to live poker can start with the smaller events or online satellites, get comfortable with tournament structures, and work their way up if the results come.
Canadians Shine In Las Vegas
Chakraborty's win came a month after one of the strongest showings by Canadians at the World Series of Poker Main Event in years.
The 2026 Main Event in Las Vegas drew 9,208 entries and was won by 22-year-old American Lucas Jumalon, who collected US$10 million. But two of the nine players at the final table carried Canadian flags:
| Player | Finish | Prize (US$) |
|---|---|---|
| Greg Mueller | 3rd | $3,750,000 |
| Rami Hammoud | 6th | $1,750,000 |
Greg Mueller's third-place finish was the highlight. Mueller, a three-time WSOP bracelet winner and one of Canada's most accomplished tournament players, collected a career-defining US$3.75 million. Rami Hammoud's sixth-place finish added another US$1.75 million to the Canadian tally.
Canada's best-known poker ambassador, Daniel Negreanu, has also had a busy September. He reached three online WSOP bracelet final tables in a single week, though he couldn't convert any of them into a ninth career bracelet.
Ontario'S Online Game: Ring-Fenced But Growing
Online, the story is more complicated.
Since Ontario opened its regulated iGaming market on April 4, 2022, its licensed poker sites have been ring-fenced. That means players physically located in Ontario can only compete against other players in Ontario. Before 2022, Ontarians played in the same global player pools as the rest of the world on sites such as PokerStars and GGPoker. Today, those brands run separate Ontario-only clients.
The ring-fence hasn't stopped the market from growing. In March 2026, Ontario's peer-to-peer poker revenue reached a record C$6.9 million, up from C$5.4 million in February, while poker wagers climbed to C$183 million, also a record. In July, poker accounted for C$116 million in wagers and C$5.3 million in revenue, according to iGaming Ontario's monthly reports.
Still, poker remains a small slice of Ontario's overall iGaming market, which processed a record C$9.88 billion in total wagers in July, overwhelmingly on casino games. The reason is simple: poker is the only casino product where players compete against each other rather than the house, so it depends on having enough players online at all hours. A province of 16 million people can support a healthy game, but not one with the tournament guarantees and round-the-clock high-stakes action of a global site.
The market has also been reshaping itself. In May, PokerStars began migrating its Ontario players to a FanDuel-branded client as part of parent company Flutter's consolidation of its poker brands.
The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything
The biggest question in Canadian online poker is now before the country's highest court.
In November 2025, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled 4-1 that the province's iGaming model complies with the federal Criminal Code, and that Ontario could legally allow players in the province to take part in peer-to-peer games, including online poker, with players outside Canada. The key condition was that Ontario must continue to "conduct and manage" the gaming operation, keeping operational control over any cross-border arrangement.
The poker industry welcomed the decision as a breakthrough. It was short-lived. A coalition of government-owned lottery corporations, the Canadian Lottery Coalition, appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the proposal runs afoul of the Criminal Code and could open the door to further expansion of illegal gambling. Quebec joined the appellants in April. Alberta, which launched its own regulated iGaming market in July, won the right to intervene on Ontario's side.
Until the Supreme Court rules, nothing changes for players. Ontario remains ring-fenced, and operators that had signalled interest in the province if cross-border play became possible are staying on the sidelines.
If the Court of Appeal decision is upheld, the implications would be significant. Ontario could become the first jurisdiction in North America to formally permit international shared poker liquidity, potentially linking its players with regulated markets in Europe. That would mean bigger tournament guarantees, more cash games at every stake and more action at off-peak hours.
Not every Ontario player is cheering for that outcome. Some regulars argue that the current ring-fenced market is softer, with a higher proportion of recreational players, and that reopening to the world would bring back tougher international competition.
Alberta And The Dream Of A Canadian Pool
There is also a domestic option. Alberta opened its regulated online market to private operators on July 13, becoming Canada's second open iGaming province. Online poker in Alberta is expected to be ring-fenced when operators go live, but industry observers have been hopeful that Alberta and Ontario could agree to share their poker player pools.
An interprovincial pool wouldn't need the Supreme Court's blessing in the same way an international one would, and it would give both provinces a larger, more stable player base. For Alberta, a much smaller market than Ontario, joining forces may be the only way to make regulated online poker viable. No agreement has been announced.
What It Means For Canadian Players
For Canadian poker fans, 2026 carries several clear messages.
Live poker in Canada has never been bigger. Playground's Super Circuit showed there is enough demand to support festivals with eight-figure prize pools, and Canadian players no longer need to fly to Las Vegas to play for life-changing money.
Canadians can compete with anyone. Two players at the WSOP Main Event final table and an all-Canadian heads-up match in Montreal say plenty about the depth of talent in the country.
Online, the rules depend on where you live. Ontario and Alberta players should stick to provincially licensed sites. Elsewhere, the only legal online options are the government-run platforms in each province.
And the future is still being written. The Supreme Court decision on international liquidity, and any Ontario-Alberta agreement, could reshape Canadian online poker within the next year or two.
Tournament newcomers should also know the basics before registering for a big event. Large-field tournaments often have multiple starting flights, so players can pick the day that suits them. Many events allow re-entry, which can quickly multiply the real cost of a tournament if you're not careful. And payouts are steep at the top: in the Super Circuit Main Event, first place was worth C$1.5 million, while hundreds of players who cashed took home a small multiple of their buy-in. Set a firm limit on buy-ins and re-entries before you sit down, and treat anything beyond that as a bonus.
For now, Mayukh Chakraborty's story is the one Canadian poker will remember from 2026: a player with two small cashes to his name who sat down in a record-breaking field and walked away the biggest winner in Canadian tournament history.
Poker is a game of skill, but it is also gambling. If you need support, free and confidential help is available through your provincial helpline. In Ontario, ConnexOntario is available 24/7 at 1-866-531-2600.