The cheapest route to a seven-figure score at the 2026 World Series of Poker is almost fully loaded. Event #50, the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, has built a prize pool of $9,919,080 through its Day 1c flight — a whisker under the $10 million mark — with a guaranteed $1,000,000 already locked in for the eventual champion.
That guarantee is the whole pitch of the Millionaire Maker: a modest buy-in, a colossal field, and a million dollars promised to first place no matter how the math shakes out. With one starting flight still to fire, the pool is all but certain to clear eight figures before the survivors merge.
3,121 more bullets on Day 1c
Day 1c by itself drew 3,121 entries, and only 780 of them bagged chips for the next round. Daniel Moran of the United Kingdom closed the flight on top with 605,000. Former world champions are lurking too — 2016 Main Event winner Qui Nguyen and 2009 champion Joe Cada both advanced to Day 2.
On the Day 2b side of the draw, a returning field of 625 was trimmed to 88. Jhordy Sanchez bagged the overall lead at 2,125,000, with Jason Wheeler a single big blind back on 2,000,000.
A Thai name in the top ten
The leaderboard isn’t all North American and European regulars. Runch Pornraksamane, flying the Thai flag, carried 1,210,000 into the weekend — a top-ten Day 2b stack and one of the deepest Asian runs still alive in the event. Big-field, low-buy-in turbo-millionaire formats like this one have become the favourite dream-chase across Southeast Asia, so a Bangkok grinder sitting near the chip lead for a guaranteed million is worth keeping an eye on.
Hong Kong’s Hokyiu Lee was flying the regional flag elsewhere on Day 25, reaching the final table of the $1,500 Five Card Pot-Limit Omaha. But it’s the Millionaire Maker, with its accessible price tag and life-changing top prize, that tends to capture imaginations far beyond the Las Vegas felt.
What happens next
The final Day 1d flight fires Saturday, June 20, which will tip the prize pool past $10 million and lock in the official entry count. Every surviving stack from all four flights then combines for Day 3 on Monday, June 22, when the money bubble bursts and the real grind toward that million-dollar summit begins. We’ll be tracking how far Pornraksamane and the rest of the Day 2 pack can push.