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EPT Monte-Carlo 2025 featured a strong Main Event field, major high rollers, and the classic high-stakes atmosphere for which the series is known. The festival also hosted side events with various poker formats, which drew many regulars who consider Monte Carlo a mandatory stop.
Between the tight schedule, the clean organization, and the classic Casino de Monte-Carlo setting, the series delivered exactly what players expect from the Riviera – high buy-ins, high pressure, and almost zero soft spots.
The European Poker Tour has become the series players instinctively associate with “serious” live poker in Europe. It didn’t grow on hype or marketing noise – it earned its status over two decades of packed festival halls, chaotic registration lines in Barcelona, long waiting lists in Prague, and final tables where half the field already had a trophy at home.
Since 2004, EPT has built its reputation the slow way: stable locations, predictable quality, and a level of structure and logistics that makes even regulars treat each stop as a must-play event of the year. For many players, it is not just a regular schedule on PokerStars – it’s a real routine. You plan your year around Barcelona in August, Monte-Carlo in spring, and Prague in December. It’s also one of the few tours where almost every stop develops its own identity. Barcelona is the record-breaker, Monte Carlo is the high-roller capital, and Prague is the grinder magnet. Together they form a rhythm that shapes the European poker calendar – a rhythm that players follow almost instinctively.
The European Poker Tour is the most established and recognisable live poker series in Europe – a tour that built its reputation not on slogans, but on consistently packed festivals and fields that blend elite professionals with a huge crowd of ambitious recreational players. Launched in 2004, it became the first European series to offer genuinely “global” prize pools and tournament structures on par with the top American events, such as the WSOP.
The EPT, alongside others such as the WPT, is at the pinnacle of live poker action, with players from all over the world eager to take down massive six- or even seven-figure prizes and claim some of the biggest trophies in poker.
What makes the EPT stand out today is its stability and the quality of its stops. The tour doesn’t jump between dozens of random casinos – it focuses on a few cities that repeatedly deliver massive fields and a strong player mix: Barcelona, Monte-Carlo, and Prague. Each festival attracts a diverse group of players from across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, transforming every stop into a week-long poker hub where mid-stakes grinders, online qualifiers, and high rollers all converge under one roof.
EPT’s identity is built on three things: reliable organisation, deep and fair structures, and a competitive environment where winning a trophy still means something. The brand has history, prestige, and, most importantly, a player base that keeps returning year after year.
So what this all really mean for players and the poker community indeed:
The EPT runs as a series of large live poker festivals scattered across Europe (and occasionally nearby regions). Each stop of the tour is more than just a single tournament – it’s a full-scale poker festival lasting about 1–2 weeks, with a diversified schedule: a Main Event, high-rollers, mid-buy-in tournaments and a wide selection of side events.
Rather than chasing large numbers of shallow, small tournaments, the organisers keep the tour compact – typically 4 to 6 major stops per season. This approach ensures that each stop remains significant: big fields, heavy competition, and serious prize pools. In recent years, for example, the announced EPT schedule includes not only regular stops, but also such debutants as Paris, Cyprus, and Malta.
The core “classic” cities have long been Barcelona, Monte Carlo, and Prague – these three have repeatedly attracted massive turnouts and held up as anchor stops on the tour.
Across those stops, you’ll find consistent tournament structures: deep starting stacks, fair blind-level progressions, re-entries or re-buys in many events – a mix that welcomes both serious grinders and recreational players travelling from different countries.
Every EPT stop revolves around its Main Event. This is where most of the attention is, the tournament that defines the festival. It’s a multi-day No-Limit Hold’em with deep starting stacks and slow blind levels – a structure that rewards real play and patience. The fields mix professionals, online qualifiers, and regular players who travel to Europe for a shot at a trophy. It’s serious poker, and it shows at every table.
EPT High Roller events run in parallel. These draw elite pros and wealthy amateurs willing to risk five- or six-figure buy-ins. The structures are robust enough to make every decision count – one mistake can be costly.
Outside the big headline tournaments, the schedule is loaded with popular mid-stakes formats – deepstack Hold’em events, single-day high rollers, PLO tournaments, mystery bounties, and a handful of mixed-game offerings depending on the venue. The idea is simple: everyone should find something worth playing, whether they’re chasing a title, volume, or just a chance to run deep in a competitive field.
EPT doesn’t rely on gimmicks. Its structure is built around slow levels, deep stacks, and predictable tournament pacing – the same formula that keeps regulars coming back and makes titles on this tour carry weight. If you win something here, you didn’t stumble into it by accident.
The strength of EPT shows most clearly in its numbers – record‑breaking fields, massive prize pools, and headline‑making wins. The flagship stop, EPT Barcelona, holds most of the records. In 2022, the largest Main Event in the history of the EPT was recorded, with 2,294 entries guaranteeing a huge prize pool of €11,125,900. For this reason, the champion’s payout almost exceeded €1.5 million.
That massive field marked a new milestone – EPT’s first seven‑figure prize pool and the first time the Main Event attracted more than 2,000 entries. However, even outside this record-setting year, the tour regularly delivers heavy guarantee tournaments, with the 2019, 2018, 2016, and 2015 editions in Barcelona all surpassing the €8–9 million mark.
In 2025, the tour reaffirmed its scale: the Main Event drew 2,045 entries and produced a near €10 million prize pool – among the highest in tour history.
High‑roller and side‑event tournaments add further weight. EPT festivals are built to support a diverse range of buy-ins – from recreational‑player‑friendly mid‑stakes to serious high‑roller action. For many pros and regulars, this mix means multiple chances to score big over a single festival week.
# / Event
Year / Stop
Entries / Field Size
Prize Pool
Winner / Highlight
1
EPT Barcelona 2022 (Main Event)
2,294 entries
€11,125,900 – largest in EPT history
Giuliano Bendinelli – €1,491,133 for 1st place
2
EPT Barcelona 2019 (Main Event)
1,988 entries
€9,641,800
Top-heavy cashes in large field
3
EPT Barcelona 2018 (Main Event)
1,931 entries
€9,365,350
High-level competition in deep-structure event
4
EPT Barcelona 2025 (Main Event)
2,045 entries
€9,918,250
Thomas Eychenne – ~€1.2 M (first prize)
5
EPT Barcelona 2016 (Main Event)
1,785 entries
€8,657,250
Consistent mid‑to‑high stakes tournament pool
Rank
Year / Event
Winner (Country)
Prize (€)
Field Size
2009, EPT Grand Final Monte Carlo
Pieter de Korver (Netherlands)
2,300,000
Large international field
2007, EPT Grand Final Monte Carlo
Gavin Griffin (USA)
1,825,010
Elite field
2011, EPT Grand Final Madrid
Ivan Freitez (Venezuela)
1,500,000
1,500+
2022, EPT Barcelona
Giuliano Bendinelli (Italy)
1,491,133
2,294
2015, EPT Grand Final Monte Carlo
Adrián Mateos (Spain)
1,082,000
1,100+
6
2024, EPT Paris
Barny Boatman (UK)
1,287,800
7
2024, EPT Barcelona
Stephen Song (USA)
1,290,386
2,000+
8
2013, EPT Barcelona
Tom Middleton (UK)
924,000
1,200+
9
2025, EPT Barcelona
Thomas Eychenne (France)
1,217,175
2,045
10
2023, EPT Monte Carlo
Mike Watson (Canada)
749,425
900+
And what matters most: an EPT title is more than just money. Winning under fields of thousands, against international competition, on deep‑stack formats – that gives any trophy serious cred. EPT remains one of the rare European live tours where a win carries both cash value and real prestige.
