UPDATE 

LIVE TOURNAMENTS HAVE RETURNED TO ONTARIO SINCE THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED

‍VIEW THE SCHEDULE 

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Once a regular hotbed for Canadian tournament action, thinking back to the glory days of WPT events in Niagara Falls when you could find a $500 tourney any given weekend somewhere across the province, I am sad to report that nobody is currently holding live poker tournaments in Ontario. Ever since the Covid-19 lockdowns, there has been a drought for poker tournaments in the province and other than the CNE event this past summer, hopeful players have had to satiate themselves with the offerings of the newly born regulated Ontario online poker market or travel outside of the province.

We reached out to Casino Niagara, Great Blue Heron and Caesars Windsor to inquire if they had any plans to introduce live poker tournaments.
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Casino Niagara responded that "At this time, we do not have any upcoming poker tournaments scheduled." which doesn't rule out the possibility of them bringing back their annual poker event at some point. All hope isn't lost. If you think they should, drop by our community and let us know.
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Great Blue Heron Operations Manager said "At this time, we do not have any plans to run live poker events." which is saying arguably the exact same thing as above but sounds somewhat more clear that they are not planning to schedule anything. It's unfortunate, as speaking for myself I would travel and stay in the hotel to play events if they were available there again.
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Caesars Windsor has yet to make any comment. We think the best potential going forward might be for Caesars Entertainment to leverage its partnership with GGPoker through WSOP.ca to offer live events in Windsor that have online satellites on WSOP.ca. Why not a WSOP Circuit event in Windsor with online satellites?  The framework and demand are all in place. This is just my own conjecturing but if I see the opportunity, surely they do. I will give an update if more information becomes available.

To my knowledge, no other venue in Ontario is planning to offer Live Tournaments either. If you know of anything, please let us know. Hopefully, by this next time next year, the surging Ontario online poker market can spill onto the live scene and make for some exciting live events in the province. I can't be the only one not so patiently waiting.

(This article was published in November 2022)