WPT Australia begins at The Star Sydney today, September 10, launching 21 days of tournament poker that will eventually produce champions in both WPT Prime and the A$5,000 WPT Australia Championship.
The opening Australian Poker Cup gets the festival underway with Day 1A at 2:30pm local time. It is the first major event on a schedule running through September 30 and comes during an unusually busy period for poker in Sydney.
Australian Poker Cup Opens WPT Australia
The first WPT Australia trophy will be contested in the Australian Poker Cup, which begins with the first of three starting flights today.
The Star lists entry at A$1,150, with players receiving a 50,000 starting stack and playing 30-minute levels. Unlimited re-entry is available during the registration period, while action clocks will be in use.
Day 1B follows on Friday and Day 1C on Saturday before the surviving players return for Day 2 on Sunday, September 13.
Today’s schedule also includes the A$500 True Blue Turbo at 6:30pm, while satellites into the Australian Poker Cup run at 10:30am and 8:30pm.
Those tournaments are only the beginning.
The full WPT Australia festival contains 36 tournaments across three weeks, including bounty events, Pot-Limit Omaha, a Ladies Championship and several high rollers alongside the two headline WPT events.
WPT Prime Australia Starts September 17
The first of the festival’s two major championships is the A$1,500 WPT Prime Australia Championship, running from September 17 to 22.
WPT Prime has developed into a major tournament series in its own right, sitting below the main WPT Championship level while still producing substantial international fields. The Sydney event will conclude with a livestreamed final table.
Attention then turns to the A$5,000 WPT Australia Championship.
That tournament begins on September 24 and runs through September 30, with its eventual champion joining the list of players to win a World Poker Tour title in Australia. Its final table will also be livestreamed.
The return of the World Poker Tour to Sydney comes less than a week after WPT Tokyo 2026 was cancelled amid uncertainty surrounding Japan’s domestic poker regulations.
It creates two very different pictures of the WPT’s position in the Asia-Pacific region. One major stop has disappeared from the calendar while another begins a 21-day festival featuring two championship events.
Sydney Is Hosting Two International Poker Festivals
WPT Australia is not arriving in an empty Sydney poker calendar.
The Irish Open’s first Australian festival is already underway at Poker Palace at Club Marconi and continues until September 14.
That means Sydney will host overlapping WPT Australia and Irish Open festivals over the next five days.
The Irish Open Main Event carries a A$1 million guarantee, while its wider schedule contains more than 40 tournaments. WPT Australia now adds another 36 events at The Star.
For Australian players, the overlap creates a particularly concentrated period of major live tournament poker without requiring an international trip.
It also provides another example of international poker brands investing in the Asia-Pacific market. The Irish Open chose Sydney for its first festival outside Europe, while the World Poker Tour is returning with a three-week schedule built around two of its championship formats.
21 Days of WPT Poker Begin Today
The biggest prizes at WPT Australia will not be decided for another three weeks.
Before the WPT Prime and WPT Australia Championship fields arrive, however, the Australian Poker Cup has the job of opening the festival.
Cards are due in the air at 2:30pm Sydney time today.
By September 30, The Star will have hosted 21 consecutive days of WPT Australia poker and crowned two major WPT champions.
