Modern Online High-Stakes Games: An Analysis by Quint Ace

Where Did GGPoker’s High-Stakes Action Go?

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Until late 2024, GGPoker remained the primary platform for the highest-stakes online cash games. However, in November of that year, the poker room switched all tables with stakes above $10/$20 to a private format, requiring players to submit a request to join the games. GGPoker attributed the changes to requests from high-stakes players; however, combined with the requirement to play under real names, this approach negatively impacted the volume of high-stakes action in the poker room.

The AceGuardian team, supported by Quint Ace, analyzed 2.57 billion Hold'em hands to understand how the online high-stakes landscape shifted following GGPoker's changes. The study focused on three poker rooms: CoinPoker, ACR Poker, and WPT Global. This article showcases a condensed version of the study, accompanied by our comments.

The researchers classify games with stakes ranging from $25/$50 up to  $200/$400 as "high-stakes," while labeling even higher-stakes games as "nosebleeds."

CoinPoker: The New Hub for High-Stakes Poker

CoinPoker has become the new hub for high-stakes games.

• 100,600 hands dealt in November 2025, compared to 6,700 in March of the same year.
• 593,753 hands played at stakes ranging from $25/$50–$200/$400 in 2025—more than at any other room in the sample obtained by Quint Ace.
• $2,500/$5,000 was the highest stake level played in January 2026.
• 9,031 hands were played at stakes above  $200/$400 in 2026, nearly double the combined total of all other poker rooms.
• Seven CoinPoker players won a total of $6.06 million between January and August 2026.

CoinPoker reacted to the changes at GGPoker relatively quickly. Within a year, its highest stakes increased from  $300/$600 to $2,500/$5,000.

At the same time, the structure of the games changed in 2026: the number of hands played at $50/$100 and $100/$200 dropped by more than half, while the volume at $25/$50 increased by roughly the same amount.

(WPD: We attribute this to the launch of VIP Arena, which made $50/$100+ tables invite-only. GGPoker’s story was repeated on a smaller scale.)

The highest-stakes games, meanwhile, were played primarily in heads-up (HU) format.

(WPD:This was largely driven by two Cash Game World Championship events, held in November–December 2025 and April–May 2026.)

Two other factors that may have contributed to the explosive growth of high-stakes action on CoinPoker, according to Quint Ace’s hypothesis, were:

• Minimal regional restrictions. The poker room attracts players from the US and several other markets not available on competing platforms.
• For million-dollar games, the ability to move large sums in USDT quickly can be more practical than a traditional bank transfer.

(WPD: It’s also worth noting the launch of a dedicated high-stakes loyalty program in spring 2026, offering substantial rakeback.)

ACR Poker

Unlike CoinPoker, ACR Poker didn’t build its high-stakes games from scratch following GGPoker’s reform. After a slump in 2025, the poker room has now managed to significantly boost activity at the $25/$50+ stakes.

(WPD: In recent years, a "HighStakes" tab has been added to the client, featuring tables with stakes of $300/$600 and $500/$1,000.)

• 61,211 high-stakes hands per month in 2026, roughly double the figure for 2025. The "low base effect" should be taken into account; high-stakes games at the poker room in 2025 were nearly half the volume of 2024. In July and October 2024, the number of hands per month exceeded 100,000. Since then, high-stakes traffic on ACR hasn’t come close to reaching that level again.
• Traffic exceeded the figures for the corresponding months of 2025 for six consecutive months (March through August).
• Growth was observed at every stake level from $25/$50 to $200/$400.
• The rake at $200/$400 is 0.07 BB/100, the lowest among competitors.
• 44 consecutive months of high-stakes activity since January 2023.

ACR Poker accepts players from fewer countries than CoinPoker but offers a similar crypto-friendly infrastructure.

ACR Poker’s main advantage over its competitors is its low rake at high stakes, which has remained unchanged since the poker room launched.

WPT Global

WPT Global has the highest high-stakes traffic of the poker rooms analyzed by number of hands played. Its trajectory differs from both CoinPoker and ACR: there has been neither a sharp recovery nor a rapid growth. Instead, current traffic at the high-stakes tables is significantly below 2023 levels.

According to Quint Ace, around 87,700 high-stakes hands are played on WPT Global each month, more than on ACR or CoinPoker. However, this is roughly 45% below the 2023 level.

At the most popular ¥50/¥100/¥200 stakes, monthly traffic increased over the past year from 65,021 to 75,619 hands. At the same time, the next two stakes lost more than 40% of their traffic.

In other words, WPT Global retains its lead mainly because of the lowest stakes in its high-stakes lineup. The ¥2,000/¥4,000 games were only conducted in January and February 2025.

Against this backdrop, WPT Global doesn’t look like a new destination for high-stakes poker, bringing anything particularly new to the scene.

(WPD: Due to its weak player pool and large existing base of Asian players, the poker room was able to attract high-stakes enthusiasts from other countries. However, neither 40% rakeback for players who start ¥100/¥200/¥400+ tables nor the widest selection of cryptocurrencies in the cashier compared with CoinPoker and ACR Poker helped increase activity at the highest stakes.)

It is also worth noting that Quint Ace had access to WPT Global’s complete hand database, while the data for CoinPoker and ACR Poker may have contained gaps.

Taking WPT Global’s unique betting structure into account, Quint Ace didn’t simply use blind levels to determine where high stakes begin at the poker room.

Technically, ¥50/¥100/¥200 falls short of $25/$50 (¥200 is roughly $30), but because of the straddle and ante in 8-max games, ¥750, or around $112, is already in the pot at the start of each hand. And $75 at $25/$50. That is why Quint Ace considers ¥50/¥100/¥200 the first high-stakes level at WPT Global.

Who Won the Most at High Stakes Online?

Quint Ace has compiled a table of the top high-stakes winners over the past six years, based on an available hand database:

The contrast between WPT Global and CoinPoker users is striking: while their winnings were comparable in size, on CoinPoker they played an order of magnitude fewer hands, almost all of them heads-up. 

CoinPoker players dominated the top 10 in 2026:

An analysis of a large database covering five poker sites over the past six years revealed that even the strongest and most renowned players finish up to half of their daily sessions in the red. The statistics of winning patterns at two of the high-stakes sites showed some interesting characteristics.

CoinPoker

CoinPoker stands out from the other rooms in the study for its high concentration of big wins. The top 25 players accounted for more than half of the total profits generated by players who finished their high-stakes sessions in the black.

CoinPoker was also the newest room in the study: the earliest hands included in the analysis date back to December 31, 2024. Within its first year, the data already included games at stakes up to $2.5/5K. According to the study’s authors, the combination of a young player pool and specially organized high-stakes challenges may be one of the main reasons for such concentration of the results.

CoinPoker also stands out for the significant role of heads-up play and a handful of exceptionally profitable sessions. For example, Kayhan "KayhanMok" Mokri played 95.7% of his hands heads-up and earned $1.99 million in that format out of his total $2.31 million profit. Henri  "Clickr " Puustinen,  "PencilArms," and  "Kennedy" also specialized in heads-up games, earning a combined $4.15 million in the format.

If the five most profitable playing days for each of the top-25 CoinPoker winners are excluded, 15 players would end up in the red.

Other observations:

• Of the 40 days with the biggest winnings, 19 took place on CoinPoker.
• On January 16, 2026, Kayhan "KayhanMok" Mokri won $1,199,300 over 47 hands at the $2.5K/$5K stakes.
• Quint Ace suggests that as game volume on CoinPoker increases, the current concentration of results among a small group of players may become less pronounced.

WPT Global

WPT Global stands out from CoinPoker for its more even distribution of profits. It had the highest share of winning players among the five rooms analyzed, at 33.7%. In the other four rooms, the figure ranged from 21.5% to 25.0%.

At the same time, the top 25 high-stakes players on WPT Global accounted for less than 10% of the total profits earned by winning high-stakes players. A profit of $556,158 was enough to make the top 25.

WPT Global also stands out for the consistency of its top players’ results. After excluding their five most profitable playing days, none of the top 25 players had a negative overall result. For the player in the middle of the ranking, profits from those five days accounted for just 27.3% of their total winnings.

WPT Global players also occupy most of the top spots when ranked by profit per 100 hands. However, this metric can’t be directly compared with the other rooms without taking WPT Global’s unique betting structure into account.

Other observations:

• No WPT Global player made the top ten list for earnings per hand.
• WPT Global players hold nine of the top ten spots for winnings per 100 hands after adjusting the calculation to account for betting specifics.
• The only player in the top ten not from WPT Global was "Vanessa18" from CoinPoker.

The Bottom Line

After the changes at GGPoker, high-stakes players began actively looking for alternative venues. CoinPoker quickly introduced games up to  $2.5/$5 and attracted significant high-stakes action; ACR Poker gradually rebuilt its traffic after a decline, while WPT Global maintained a large volume of action, primarily due to its lowest high-stakes level.

At the same time, each room has developed its own high-stakes profile: CoinPoker relies heavily on heads-up challenges and action from prominent regulars, ACR combines high stakes with low rake, while WPT Global maintains activity at the higher limits due to its large traffic and weak field.

As for the achievements of individual players, the Quint Ace study revealed significant diversity in the structure of their winnings. For some, the bulk of their profit comes from heads-up play and isolated short sessions, while others derive their results from a high volume of hands played at entry-level high-stakes limits. Notably, even the most successful players end up in the red in as many as half of their sessions.

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