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At the start of 2024, one of the most successful mid-stakes poker tours in the world had awarded $176 million in prize money since its inception in 2009. Now, less than a month into 2025, they’ve crossed the $200,000,000 milestone!
Actually, through three stops already in the New Year, the MSPT has awarded a total of $201,250,183. Most recently, poker pro Faraz Jaka topped a 636-entry field to win the MSPT Bally’s Black Hawk Casino $1,110 Main Event for $127,849. To date, the MSPT has hosted 275 Main Events and 69 Regional Events.
The MSPT launched in Dec. 2009 at Canterbury Park as the Minnesota State Poker Tour. A year and a half later, the MSPT crossed the state border into Iowa, and before long expansion saw the tour rebranded as the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT), a series of affordable deepstack no-limit hold’em tournaments designed for “weekend warriors.”
The MSPT will now return to Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a stop they haven’t been to since before the pandemic due to the poker room shutting down and only reopening last year. The $1,110 MSPT 100 Grand Stack Main Event features a $500,000 guarantee and will run January 28-February 2. Both Chad Holloway and Kyna England from the Global Poker Award-nominated PokerNews Podcast will be in attendance.
After that, the tour heads to Las Vegas for the $1,000,000 GTD Poker Bowl IX at the Venetian with the final table slated to be live-streamed in the poker room’s new studio.
Click here to see all upcoming MSPT stops.
Gerald Cunniff Latest MSPT Hall of Fame Inductee
Last weekend, Minnesota’s Gerald Cunniff finished 64th for $2,058 in the MSPT Bally’s Black Hawk Main Event. It marked his 25th MSPT Main Event cash, which along with his 2022 MSPT South Dakota State Poker Championship win for $94,843, earned him a coveted spot in the MSPT Hall of Fame.
Established in 2017, the MSPT Hall of Fame offers objective criteria for players to earn their way in.
The criteria are:
- Achieve a minimum of 25 MSPT Main Event Cashes and 1 MSPT Win OR 1 MSPT Player of the Year; or
- Achieve a minimum of 10 MSPT Main Event Final Tables and 1 MSPT Win OR 1 MSPT Player of the Year
Cunniff became just the 16th player to earn their way into the prestigious club, and what’s more, he did it relatively quickly having earned his first MSPT cash in 2017. All told, Cunniff has $297,028 in MSPT earnings including six Top 10 finishes.
MSPT Hall of Fame
| Year | Inductee |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Gerald Cunniff |
| 2024 | Rodger Johnson, Chris Moon |
| 2023 | Aaron Massey, “DQ” Dan Hendrickson, Umut Ozturk |
| 2022 | Josh Reichard, Matt Kirby |
| 2021 | Jason Seitz, Rob Wazwaz |
| 2020 | Pat Steele, Blake Bohn |
| 2019 | Mark Hodge |
| 2018 | Aaron Johnson, Rich Alsup, Kou Vang |
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