The 2026 Aussie Millions Poker Championship opened at Crown Melbourne on Friday 24 April, ending a six-year hiatus that spanned a pandemic, a royal commission and a multibillion-dollar change of ownership. Day 1A of the AU$1,500 Opening Event drew 403 entries, with 60 players bagging chips for Day 2.
Reigning 2025 WSOP Main Event champion Michael Mizrachi headlines an 18-event series running until 10 May. Chicago Bulls guard Josh Giddey is confirmed for the AU$10,600 Main Event, and AFL legend Tom Hawkins finished runner-up in a Celebrity Challenge for Charity on opening night.
The series carries an estimated AU$14 million (~US$9 million) in total prize pools across buy-ins from AU$1,500 to AU$25,000. Crown has not partnered with any online poker room for satellite qualification: every path to the Main Event runs through live satellites at Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth.
Opening Event Kicks Off With 403 Entries
Day 1A ran 15 levels of 40-minute blinds from a 40,000 starting stack. Late registration stayed open through Level 10. Of the 403 runners, 60 survived to bag chips for Day 2 on Monday 27 April.
- Entries: 403 on Day 1A (Friday 24 April). Three flights remain: Day 1B (Saturday), Day 1C (Sunday afternoon) and Day 1D Turbo (Sunday evening).
- Survivors: 60 players bagged chips. John Lane leads with 325,000. Luke Martinelli bagged 212,000 (roughly 20 big blinds heading into Day 2).
- Structure: 40,000 starting stack, 15 levels of 40-minute blinds on Day 1. Late registration open through Level 10. Day 2 levels extend to 60 minutes.
- McDonagh’s forecast: Tournament Director Danny McDonagh is targeting up to 2,000 total entries, which would generate a AU$2.6 million prize pool from the AU$1,300 net buy-in.
That 2,000-entry target is ambitious but not without precedent. The 2020 Main Event attracted 820 entries at a much higher buy-in.
Crown’s live satellite programme had already locked in 145+ Main Event qualifiers by 1 April. The casino is forecasting 300+ unique satellite entries by the time the Main Event kicks off on 4 May.
Three Ambassadors, One Reigning World Champion
Crown named three official ambassadors for the 2026 series: Michael Mizrachi, Joe Hachem and Van Marcus.
Reigning world champion Michael Mizrachi is the headline act. The Grinder arrived in Melbourne with eight WSOP bracelets after a 2025 summer that cemented him as one of poker’s all-time greats.
Mizrachi won the 2025 WSOP Main Event for US$10 million from a field of 9,735 entries. He had already claimed a record fourth Poker Players Championship title earlier in the same summer, making him the only player in history to win it four times.
He was subsequently inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame by unanimous vote. Mizrachi plans to play all 18 events in Melbourne.
This is Mizrachi’s first Aussie Millions appearance in roughly six years, and his first as reigning world champion. He has stated his broader goal is four WSOP bracelets in 2026, which would break the single-summer record of three.
Hachem, the 2005 WSOP Main Event champion and the first Australian to win poker’s biggest prize, brings local credibility. He has described an Aussie Millions title as the one gap in his career and called the series return “a no-brainer” when Crown reached out to him.
Van Marcus, an Australian Poker Hall of Fame inductee and Melbourne native, rounds out the trio. Marcus has deep roots in the Crown poker community and played in the opening-night Celebrity Challenge.
Josh Giddey and Tom Hawkins Bring the Star Power
Chicago Bulls point guard Josh Giddey confirmed his Main Event entry on 20 April via a CrownBet arrangement. The Australian is coming off a breakout 2025/26 NBA season averaging 17.0 points, 9.1 assists and 8.3 rebounds per game: top three league-wide in assists.
The crossover is genuine. Giddey has said he planned to play the Aussie Millions independently before his agent connected with CrownBet, and that he has always followed the WSOP. He is the highest-profile active professional athlete confirmed for the Main Event field.
AFL legend Tom Hawkins, a Crown Ambassador and 17-year Geelong Cats veteran, made headlines on opening night. Hawkins finished runner-up in the 24-player Celebrity Challenge for Charity, losing heads-up to Andrew Bassat (St Kilda FC president and Seek co-founder) when Bassat’s T-9 off rivered a pair against Hawkins’ K-4 suited.
The event raised AU$25,000 for Street Side Medics through the Crown Resorts Foundation. Other participants included Jackson Warne (son of Shane Warne), former Victorian minister Martin Pakula, NRL player Eli Katoa, champion jockey Glen Boss and multiple members of the Hachem family.
Why the Aussie Millions Disappeared for Six Years
The last Aussie Millions ran in January 2020. Vincent Wan won the Main Event from an 820-entry field, taking AU$1,318,000 as part of a three-way deal. What followed was a cascade of problems for Crown Melbourne.
- 2020-2021: COVID-19 border closures shut down international travel to Australia. The January 2021 Aussie Millions was cancelled outright.
- October 2021: the Finkelstein Royal Commission found Crown Melbourne unsuitable to hold Victoria’s casino licence, citing systemic failures in anti-money-laundering controls.
- June 2022: Blackstone Inc. completed its AU$8.9 billion acquisition of Crown Resorts, replacing the James Packer-era ownership structure.
- 2022-2024: a multi-year reform programme, a record AU$450 million AUSTRAC fine and a government-appointed Special Manager oversaw Crown’s compliance overhaul. No poker series ran during this period.
- March 2025: Ed Domingo installed as Crown Melbourne CEO. He is widely credited as the driving force behind the poker revival.
- July 2025: Crown formally announced the Aussie Millions would return in April 2026 with an 18-event schedule.
The April scheduling slot is deliberate. By shifting from its traditional January window, Crown avoids the WPT and PCA calendar congestion and owns a standalone position in the Southern Hemisphere autumn.
The timing also carries an unspoken message. Having a reigning world champion and Hall of Famer as the public face of the relaunch is a legitimising signal for a venue that many inside Australian poker had privately doubted would ever host the series again.
What’s on the Schedule
The 2026 Aussie Millions is a leaner series than its predecessor. The 2020 edition ran 23 events across three weeks. This year’s 18-event programme covers 17 days, with buy-ins from AU$1,500 to AU$25,000.
| Event | Dates | Buy-in (AU$) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Event (4 flights) | 24-28 April | 1,500 | AU$1,000,000 GTD |
| AU$5,000 6-Max | from 27 April | 5,000 | |
| Mystery Bounty | from 28 April | 1,500 | |
| AU$25,000 Challenge | 3-4 May | 25,000 | |
| Main Event | 4-10 May | 10,600 | Final table Sun 10 May |
| Closing Event | 10 May | 1,500 |
The remaining side events include PLO, mixed games, a Shot Clock Terminator, Super Turbo Bounty, Deep Freeze and a Teams Event. The full schedule is available on Crown Melbourne’s official Aussie Millions page.
Crown sold 100+ Main Event seats by mid-February, well before the series began. With satellite qualifiers trending above 300 and walk-up entries to come, the Main Event field could approach or exceed the 820-entry benchmark set by Vincent Wan’s 2020 victory.
No Online Satellites: The Gap in the Comeback
One detail stands out in the 2026 relaunch: there is no online satellite partner. Every path to the Main Event runs through live qualification at Crown Melbourne or Crown Perth.
Crown’s live satellite ladder starts at AU$86 and feeds through AU$280 and AU$1,150 phases to a Main Event seat. Nightly AU$250 Midnight Mega Satellites and AU$750 satellites awarding 10 guaranteed seats round out the programme.
That is a sharp departure from the pre-2017 era. Before Australia’s Interactive Gambling Amendment Act forced offshore poker rooms out of the country, PokerStars ran weekly Aussie Millions packages worth more than AU$12,000 each.
Full Tilt, 888poker and bwin ran parallel campaigns at the time. Those pipelines have been gone for nearly a decade.
For players outside Australia, WPT Global’s Asia-Pacific satellite programme does not currently include the Aussie Millions. GGPoker’s online qualifier ladder is similarly absent, even though both rooms accept players from New Zealand and key Asia-Pacific markets.
Australian-based players still have live satellite options at Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth. For ongoing coverage of the 2026 Aussie Millions, follow our poker news section.
Der Beitrag Aussie Millions 2026: Crown Melbourne’s Six-Year Wait Ends With a World Champion erschien zuerst auf VIP-Grinders.
About The Author
