The 2026 edition of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is just around the corner. Action opens on May 26th with a Mini Mystery Millions Tournament. Last year, over 19,000 players entered the Mystery Millions event, which had a buy-in of $1,100. This year’s Mini Mystery Millions offers a buy-in of just $550. It looks like this World Series will start off with a bang.
Ready to Rate Your Dealer at the WSOP?
Last week, Jeff Platt announced that the WSOP is adding a new feature to the WSOP Live app. For the first time, players can rate their dealers as they play. The WSOP claims that these ratings will impact which dealers continue on through a tournament as tables wind down. They also claim that dealer pay or bonuses may be linked to these ratings.
This is a fascinating development, as dealer performance in the WSOP is highly variable. Personally, I have encountered some of the worst dealers of my life at the WSOP. It’s true, I have also had dealers at the top of their game. But some WSOP dealers have clearly never dealt a hand of poker in their lives on day 1. These dealers can be particularly problematic, as errors are common, play proceeds slowly, and judgments about rule violations is often unduly influenced by players at the table.
Of course, the reality of the situation is that for a large tournament (such as that Mini Mystery Millions mentioned above), the WSOP is going to have to take whatever dealers it can get. The WSOP hosts the largest tournaments in the world. When you need 500 dealers on Day 1A of a tournament, you need 500 dealers.
However, I strongly support a system that will help winnow the field to the best dealers as play progresses. It only seems fair that those who work to learn the necessary skills and can pull off a firm but friendly demeanor deserve to be rewarded.
Potential Issues with Rating Dealers
While getting feedback on dealers, whether it be at the WSOP or in local card rooms (if this idea expands), has strong potential to improve the player experience, there can be downsides. Providing ratings is voluntary and self-initiated by players. The ratings are not done by every player, or likely even most players, who encounter a dealer. This may lead to bias – people who self-initiate ratings for any product or service are generally overrepresented by extremes. This is probably okay as long as the ratings are used to incentivize excellent dealers. If the application of dealer ratings expands to punish poorly rated dealers, it opens up the possibility that dealers may receive harsh ratings unfairly because a player was having a bad day or a bad experience for reasons not related to dealer performance.
Another issue is that some savvy, bold dealers can engage in “fishing for good ratings.” We’ve all likely experienced this in customer situations: the agent says, “If you liked your experience today, please fill out the survey and give me an Excellent rating on the scale.” If they were excellent, no problem, but if they were just OK, some people feel pressured to give them top scores anyway. The problem is that dealers can pick and choose who they encourage to rate them. They will encourage those who were clearly happy, and not say anything to those who weren’t. Some dealers will be assertive with these tactics and some will not use them at all. This introduces another type of bias.
Despite these potential downsides, getting feedback on dealers should prove great value long-term by encouraging good dealers and screening out poor ones.
Practice for the 2026 WSOP on Advanced Poker Training
Don’t forget that at APT, our multi-table tournament simulator will help you get ready for any event you want to play this summer at the 2026 WSOP. Our MTTs are easily configurable to set the tournament size, chip stacks, and blinds in order to approximate the tournament you would like to practice for. And if you are pondering a run at the WSOP Main Event, we offer a main event trainer that you can use to prepare for that multi-million dollar payday! Simply select MTT from the games, and under type select “Las Vegas Main Event.” Hope to see you in Las Vegas this summer!
If you missed it, check out The 2026 WSOP is on the Way, highlighting new events coming to Las Vegas this summer.
