GGPoker hid its big games in 2024. We track where high-stakes poker actually went — CoinPoker ran $2,500/$5,000 games, ACR staged a quiet comeback, and WPT Global leads in total volume.
Quick answer: High-stakes online poker left public view on GGPoker in November 2024 and resurfaced on CoinPoker and ACR. CoinPoker now hosts the biggest games anyone can watch, ACR has doubled its high-stakes traffic in 2026, and WPT Global still deals the most high-stakes hands of any room we can see.
The biggest online poker games did not disappear. They moved. When GGPoker put its big games behind private hosts in late 2024, the action that stayed public shifted to CoinPoker and ACR, while WPT Global kept dealing the most hands overall.
This article maps that move room by room. Every number comes from AceGuardian’s Industry Ecology Report, built by QuintAce, which measures five online poker rooms the same way. The WPT Global figures come from the network’s own records, as published in that report.
Affiliate disclosure: Daily Wager Zone may earn a commission if you sign up through links on this page. It never changes the data we report or how we read it.
Key Takeaways
- GGPoker went private at the top. In November 2024, every GGPoker cash game above $10/$20 moved behind private hosts.
- CoinPoker is the new home of the biggest games. It dealt 9,031 hands above $200/$400 in 2026, nearly twice every other room combined, and ran $2,500/$5,000 in January.
- ACR bounced back. Its high-stakes traffic fell from about 63,300 hands a month in 2024 to 30,700 in 2025, then climbed to 61,211 in 2026.
- ACR has the lowest rake we can see. Just 0.07 big blinds per 100 hands at $200/$400.
- WPT Global still deals the most. About 87,700 high-stakes hands a month, but that is 45% below its 2023 level.
- The big winners play on CoinPoker. Seven of 2026’s top 10 winners played there, led by KayhanMok at +$2,367,462.
The GGPoker Backstory: What Happened?
First, a few quick terms. A stake like $25/$50 means the small blind is $25 and the big blind is $50. The blinds are the forced bets that start each hand. In this article, high stakes means $25/$50 up to $200/$400. Anything bigger is a nosebleed game.
The rail is poker slang for the crowd watching a game. Back in 2009, anyone with a Full Tilt account could watch $500/$1,000 games live. Fans called it Rail Heaven. A decade later, GGPoker ran games that big, and anyone with the software could watch.
Then GGPoker changed the rules. In November 2024, it moved every cash game above $10/$20 behind private hosts. Now a player has to contact a host and wait for approval to sit down. GGPoker said its high-stakes players asked for the change. Either way, the biggest games in online poker dropped off the public record.
What the GGPoker data can and cannot show
In 2023, the report’s GGPoker sample shows about 3,900 hands a day at $25/$50 and above through October, with games as big as $500/$1,000.
Here is the catch. The sample’s GGPoker coverage above $25/$50 basically stops in November 2023. That is a full year before the private-host change. Only 147 of about 22.8 million GGPoker hands in the 2024 sample were at $25/$50 or higher.
QuintAce explains why. Hand histories are bought in stake bands, so when a band stops being supplied, it looks like the game stopped. That means the empty 2024 data is a gap in the feed, not proof of what the private games are doing.
GGPoker left one visible clue. Its $10/$20 game first shows up in the data in November 2024, the same month it became the biggest public game on the site. QuintAce notes this could also reflect a change in what its data broker supplies.
Our take: Nobody outside GGPoker can measure its private games right now, including us. So this story is really about the rooms where you can still see the action.
CoinPoker: The New Rail Heaven
CoinPoker went from zero to the biggest public games online in about a year. Its first high-stakes hand in the data is dated December 31, 2024. By November 2025, it was dealing 100,596 high-stakes hands in a single month, the most any room in the data has recorded since.
CoinPoker tables use USDT, shown as ₮. USDT is a stablecoin, a cryptocurrency built to stay worth about one U.S. dollar.
How CoinPoker climbed the ladder
It added bigger games one step at a time:
| When | New top game | What it meant |
|---|---|---|
| December 31, 2024 | $25/$50 and up | First high-stakes hand in CoinPoker’s data |
| January 2025 | $300/$600 | First public game above $200/$400 since GGPoker went private |
| June 2025 | $500/$1,000 | Matched GGPoker’s old public top stake |
| November 2025 | $1,000/$2,000 | Same month it hit 100,596 high-stakes hands |
| January 9, 2026 | $1,250/$2,500 and $2,500/$5,000 | Higher than GGPoker ever ran in public |
The biggest table in the whole dataset was a ₮1,000,000 heads-up match at $2,500/$5,000. Heads-up means just two players. It ran 330 hands between January 9 and 28, 2026, with three players taking turns.
A burst, not a steady market
What stands out to us is how lopsided the timing is. Look at CoinPoker’s hands above $200/$400, month by month:
| Month | Hands above $200/$400 |
|---|---|
| December 2025 | 10,372 |
| January 2026 | 7,599 |
| February 2026 | 187 |
| March 2026 | 62 |
| April 2026 | 990 |
| May 2026 | 104 |
| June 2026 | 0 |
| July 2026 | 0 |
Those first two months hold 17,971 of the 21,406 nosebleed hands CoinPoker has dealt since 2025. By our math, that is about 84% of all its biggest action in just two months. At $1,000/$2,000 and above, almost every hand was heads-up. These were private-style matches played in public, not busy games anyone could join.
CoinPoker’s volume has also slid down its own ladder. Its $25/$50 traffic more than doubled, while $50/$100 and $100/$200 fell by half or more.
Where the biggest winners play
Seven of the 10 biggest winners of 2026 so far played on CoinPoker. Together, those seven won $6.06 million from January to August. We cover the full list in our 2026 biggest online poker winners leaderboard.
The top name is KayhanMok, who won $2,367,462 in just 3,910 hands. 87.5% of those hands were heads-up, and the top stake was $2,500/$5,000.
Here is a comparison we ran ourselves. KayhanMok won about $605 per hand. The biggest WPT Global winner on the list, TyCobb7, won $653,493 over 58,134 hands, about $11 per hand, almost all at full tables. KayhanMok won about 3.6 times as much money in roughly one-fifteenth of the hands. That is what nosebleed heads-up poker looks like: huge swings over a tiny sample.
One warning. A few thousand hands is a very small sample in poker. Big wins that fast can come from skill, luck, or both, and the data cannot tell which.
ACR/WPN: The Quiet Comeback
ACR (Americas Cardroom, part of the Winning Poker Network, or WPN) is the only room whose high-stakes traffic fell and then fully came back. It never had a flashy $2,500/$5,000 moment. It just got busy again.
| Year | High-stakes hands per month | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | About 63,300 | — |
| 2025 | About 30,700 | Down about 52% |
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) | 61,211 | Up about 100% vs. 2025 |
By our math, ACR’s 2026 pace is within about 3% of its 2024 level. So the 2025 slump has almost fully reversed. Every month from March to August 2026 beat the same month in 2025, six in a row. ACR has also run high stakes for 44 straight months without a gap since January 2023.
Growth at every stake
The comeback is not one game carrying the room. It shows up at every level ACR runs:
| Stake | 2025 hands per month | 2026 hands per month | Change per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25/$50 | 21,849 | 37,866 | +16,017 |
| $50/$100 | 6,409 | 13,770 | +7,361 |
| $75/$150 | 0 | 1,070 | +1,070 |
| $100/$200 | 2,414 | 6,169 | +3,755 |
| $200/$400 | 0 | 2,336 | +2,336 |
ACR’s $100/$200 is also the only game in the data dealt in volume at tables of four or more players. Most games this big are heads-up or three-handed.
In August 2026, ACR went above $200/$400 for the first time in the data. It dealt 277 hands at $300/$600 and 46 at $500/$1,000, with seven players over six days between August 12 and 23. That is too short to call a trend, and we are not calling it one yet.
Why the regulars may like ACR: rake
Rake is the small cut the poker room takes from each pot. It is how the room makes money. Rake is measured here in bb/100, meaning big blinds taken per 100 hands.
ACR has the lowest rake in the data at every stake: 0.52 bb/100 at $25/$50 and just 0.07 bb/100 at $200/$400. It has not changed in two years. By our math, that works out to about $26 per 100 hands at $25/$50 and about $28 per 100 hands at $200/$400. The dollar cost barely moves while the stakes go up eight times.
Our take: For pros playing each other, rake is the biggest fixed cost. Cheap rake is the one explanation for ACR’s comeback that the data can actually measure. If you want to know why rake matters so much to your own results, read our breakdown of whether online poker is beatable.
WPT Global: Volume Leader With a Caveat
WPT Global deals more high-stakes hands than any other room in the data. But its biggest games are shrinking, and its tables are built differently, so you have to read its numbers carefully.
How WPT Global’s games compare to $25/$50
WPT Global games are listed in Chinese yuan (¥). The report converts at 7.1 yuan per dollar. Most of its games use three blinds instead of two, plus an ante:
- Straddle: a third blind, posted after the big blind, usually double its size.
- Ante: a small forced bet every player at the table pays before the cards come out.
Take an 8-handed ¥50/¥100/¥200 game with a ¥50 ante. Before anyone acts, there is ¥750 in the pot, about $106. A standard $25/$50 game starts with $75. So the report counts ¥50/¥100/¥200 and everything above it as high stakes.
| Game (yuan) | About in USD | 2025 hands per month | 2026 hands per month | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ¥50/¥100/¥200 (¥50 ante) | $7/$14/$28 | 65,021 | 75,619 | +16% |
| ¥100/¥200/¥400 (¥100 ante) | $14/$28/$56 | 13,522 | 7,982 | −41% |
| ¥200/¥400/¥800 (¥200 ante) | $28/$56/$113 | 6,266 | 3,333 | −47% |
| ¥400/¥800 (¥2,000 ante) | $56/$113 | 1,270 | 595 | −53% |
| ¥500/¥1,000 (¥500 ante) | $70/$141/$282 | 79 | 167 | +111% |
| ¥2,000/¥4,000 | $282/$563 | 341 | 0 | Gone |
| Total | 86,498 | 87,696 | +1% |
That total, about 87,700 hands a month, beats ACR and CoinPoker. But it is 45% below WPT Global’s 2023 level. The ¥100/¥200/¥400 game has lost 86% of its volume in three years.
What stands out to us is where the growth is. The smallest high-stakes game, ¥50/¥100/¥200, is up 16%. Almost everything above it is shrinking, and the ¥2,000/¥4,000 game has not run at all in 2026. Our read: WPT Global’s high-stakes pool is getting bottom-heavy. Total volume is flat only because the entry tier is growing fast enough to cover the losses higher up.
The counting caveat
WPT Global’s numbers come from its own complete records. The other rooms come from purchased samples, which QuintAce describes as the hands its data miners saw, not every hand played. So WPT Global’s lead may partly reflect better counting. We would not treat the gap between rooms as exact.
Room-by-Room Comparison: Where the High Stakes Run Now
Here is our side-by-side view of the four rooms, built from the report’s numbers:
| GGPoker | CoinPoker | ACR/WPN | WPT Global | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public high-stakes lobby? | No. Above $10/$20 is private since Nov. 2024 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2026 high-stakes volume | Not measurable | 9,031 hands above $200/$400 (Jan–Aug) | 61,211 hands a month | About 87,700 hands a month |
| Peak we can see | About 3,900 hands a day (2023) | 100,596 hands (Nov. 2025) | About 63,300 a month (2024 average) | Its 2023 level (2026 is 45% below it) |
| Biggest 2026 game | Unknown | $2,500/$5,000 | $500/$1,000 (August only) | ¥500/¥1,000 (about $70/$141/$282) |
| Trend | Invisible | Top tier quiet since February; $25/$50 growing | Up about 100% vs. 2025 | Flat vs. 2025; upper games shrinking |
| Rake note | Not covered here | Not covered here | Lowest in the data (0.07 bb/100 at $200/$400) | Not covered here |
| 2026 top-10 winners | 0 | 7 | 2 | 1 |
| Data type | Purchased sample | Purchased sample | Purchased sample | Network’s own records |
You can explore the live monthly numbers yourself in QuintAce’s High Stakes Action Tracker, which the report updates monthly.
Where Is High-Stakes Poker Heading?
The data shows where the hands went, not why. CoinPoker’s data starts the month after GGPoker’s change, so there is no “before” to compare against. Still, the pattern points somewhere. Here is our read, and it is our opinion, not a forecast anyone can guarantee.
- The nosebleeds will keep coming in bursts. Games above $200/$400 run when a handful of players decide to sit. CoinPoker is where the biggest game online was last watched, so we think it is the likeliest home for the next burst. But a burst is not a market.
- ACR is the regulars’ room. Its growth is broad, steady, and backed by the cheapest rake we can see. If its August $300/$600 and $500/$1,000 games come back this fall, ACR could become a second nosebleed home. We are watching September and October closely.
- WPT Global’s future depends on its bottom tier. The ¥50/¥100/¥200 game is growing. The question is whether those players move up, or whether the upper games keep shrinking.
- GGPoker stays dark. Unless it reopens its high-stakes lobby, its biggest games will stay off the public record.
QuintAce offers two more possible reasons for the move that no one can measure yet. First, ACR and CoinPoker take players from markets that regulated rooms cannot serve, and both accept crypto deposits. Moving seven figures for a $1,000,000 match is easier with a stablecoin than with a bank wire. Second, GGPoker’s closed lobby may have pushed some pros to look for open seats elsewhere.
Our take: If those explanations hold, high-stakes poker did not move to the best rooms. It moved to the rooms with the fewest gates between a player and a seat.
What this means for regular players
Most of us will never sit at $25/$50. But two lessons carry down to any stake. Rake matters, and so does game format. A straddle-and-ante game plays very differently from a standard two-blind game at the same listed stake.
If you are picking a room for smaller games, start with our guide to the best online poker sites for real money. Poker is also one of the few games where you play against other people, not the house. Compare that with casino games, where the house edge is built in, in our guide to how RTP and house edge work. And if you bet sports too, our parlay calculator shows exactly what a multi-leg bet pays.
For the full dataset, visit the QuintAce Ecology dashboard.
Try WPT Global
WPT Global is the busiest room in this report’s high-stakes data, and it runs games at every level, including small stakes. It is also running a promotion tied to the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas.
- $1.10 satellites to a $12,400 WPT World Championship package.
- The package includes a $10,400 Main Event entry plus a $2,000 travel stipend.
- The first 30 qualifiers get Golden Ticket eligibility for a $100,000 bonus if they win.
A satellite is a cheap tournament where the prize is a seat in a bigger one. Most players in any satellite will not win a seat, so treat the buy-in as the cost of a fun shot, not an investment. Check the full terms in the WPT Global client, and make sure online poker is legal where you live before you sign up.
References
- AceGuardian / QuintAce. “Where the Nosebleeds Moved” (listed on the Ecology Report as “Where the High Stakes Went”). AceGuardian Team. Figures pulled September 1–15, 2026. Accessed September 30, 2026.
- AceGuardian / QuintAce. The Poker Ecology Report, September 2026 edition. Accessed September 30, 2026.
- AceGuardian / QuintAce. High Stakes Action Tracker (live module, updated monthly).
- WPT Global network records for ¥50/¥100/¥200 and above, 2023 to August 2026, as published in reference 1.
- AceGuardian / QuintAce. “The Online NLHE Cash Game Leaderboard.” John Andress and Thanh Tran.
- WPT Global. WPT World Championship satellite promotion ($1.10 satellites, $12,400 package, Golden Ticket bonus). Terms in the WPT Global client.
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