2 VENOM Tourneys, $15M Total GTD @ WPN: Aug. 13 – Sept. 2

August and September 2026 bring another installment of the Venom tournament to the Winning Poker Network. As has been true for a while now, there will actually be two tournaments running simultaneously. Because this is ACR's 25th anniversary, both of the VENOMs are much more lucrative than ever before.

There's $12 million in guaranteed prizes for a No Limit Hold'em event and another $3 million in a PLO tourney for a total of $15 million guaranteed. Both of these are Mystery Bounty tournaments.

Both of these Venoms will be running in tandem beginning on Thursday, Aug. 13. There are eight starting days in each tournament followed by two further days of play in each tournament (along with a third in the NLHE event), culminating with the final tables on Wednesday, Sept. 2. You can access these tournaments from any participating site on the WPN, including ACR Poker, Blackchip Poker, and Ya Poker.

To have a chance of claiming some of the loot, you can buy into either or both tournaments for the full sticker price of $2,500 + $150 apiece. Alternatively, you can gain access to the tournaments via satellite qualifiers of which there are plenty of viable options. This affords you the opportunity to play for life-changing money with whatever funds you can comfortably spare. There are even ways to advance through the qualifiers and score your Venom entry for a total cost of $0 with freeroll tournaments.

Key Details and General Structure

As befits its stature as one of the prestige events on the Winning Poker Network calendar, the VENOM does things a bit differently than most. The substantial prize money up for grabs and the large size of the expected field mean that a standard MTT structure simply will not do for a Venom. Therefore, the structure of these tournaments is a bit different from anything you'll encounter at any alternative sites to ACR Poker.

Multiple Starting Flights

The most important structural detail of these two tournaments is that there are eight individual Day 1 flights. These starting days take place on the same calendar days for both tourneys, making it easier for customers to play them both if they wish. Every Day 1 plays down to 12% of the field, and then the action stops.

Day 1A is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 13, and the next opportunity for joining the VENOM comes on Sunday, Aug. 16 when Day 1B will kick off. The third starting day (1C) is Monday, Aug. 17.

This pattern repeats the next week with Day 1D set for Thursday, Aug. 20 followed by Day 1E on Sunday, Aug. 23 and Day 1F on Monday Aug. 24. The final two Day 1s are 1G on Thursday, Aug. 27 and 1H on Sunday, Aug. 30.

The starting time for all Day 1s is 12:05 p.m. ET for both Venom tourneys.

Multiple VENOM Entry Rules

You have the option of participating in multiple Day 1 flights. Your stacks will be combined and carried forward to your starting stack on Day 2. In addition, for every Day 1 that you survive, you will receive a min cash payment of $2,500.

However, you cannot use multiple network skins to play in the VENOM. Once you qualify for Day 2 from a single account on the Winning Poker Network, you will not be permitted to register for further Day 1s from another account. Should you obtain VENOM tickets from multiple accounts, you must contact customer support to have them transferred to a single account.

If you possess extra VENOM entries that you wish to sell or you want to purchase from someone who has extra, you can come to an agreement with the other party. Then you must both email tickettrade[at] winningpokernetwork[dot]com. Send this email from the address registered to your player account, and include the price agreed upon.

Also, only non-staked entries are permitted to try to combine their stacks from multiple successful Day 1s. Once a staked player reaches Day 2, they are not allowed to keep playing Day 1s.

Subsequent Days

The survivors from all Day 1 fields will congregate for Day 2 on Monday, Aug. 31 at 1:05 p.m. ET. The No Limit Hold'em tourney then has a Day 3 on Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 1:05 p.m. ET while the PLO players will have the day off. Then the final tables will play out beginning at 4:05 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 2.

Mystery Bounty

Both the NLHE and PLO VENOMs will be held in Mystery Bounty format. What this means is that beginning on Day 2, each elimination will grant a randomized payout to the person knocking their opponent out.

The minimum bounty payment is $5,000. This mean that you're guaranteed to win back at least two buyins (less the entry fees) if you KO even one of your opponents starting on the second day of play. The highest bounty amount is $250,000 in the PLO VENOM and $500,000 in the NLHE event. These are substantial payouts even if you fail to make the money in the regular prize pool.

Satellites Available

A myriad of satellites and other methods are available for you to utilize as a potential way of gaining access to the Venom tournament. These work perfectly for players who don’t have the initial $2,650 buy-in price in hand.

Beast Satellites

Qualifying players from the weekly The Beast cash game leaderboard will gain free access to a satellite tournament every Sunday at 5:05 p.m. from May 31 to July 5 with an additional tournament added for July 26. Otherwise, you can join by paying $95. There will be 20 seats to the NLHE VENOM given away in each of these seven Beast satellites or 140 seats altogether.

Survivor Flips

There's a set of four step tournaments that let you climb toward a coveted VENOM ticket. Each step lets you win a ticket to the next one. These tournaments are Survivor Flips.

In a Survivor Flip, eight players start each game and receive three cards. There's a single decision every hand: which card to discard. Then the board is dealt out automatically with no betting possible, and the holder of the worst hand is eliminated. Then the next hand begins, and the process continues until there's only a single remaining player.

The four steps of the Survivor Flips are:

• Step 1: $0.80
• Step 2: $6
• Step 3: $46
• Step 4: $350

Victory in Step 4 brings with it a $2,650 VENOM ticket.

As part of the Poison Path promotion, those who join the ACR Community Discord channel and verify their accounts can earn double tickets. The top 10 players who advance through the Poison Path (must play each of the four steps in order) to obtain their $2,650 VENOM entry will also receive a bonus ticket and thus acquire two VENOM seats at the same time.

Other Satellites

Though all the details have not yet been announced, ACR has confirmed that direct and MEGA satellites for the VENOM will return. Via these mechanisms, more than 1,000 seats will be awarded.

Direct satellites are no-nonsense affairs. You pay your buyin, play out the qualifying tournament, and if you are lucky or good enough to be among the highest finishers, you'll get a VENOM entry.

In the past, these direct satellites tended to award a few seats apiece and were priced from $33 to a few hundred dollars.

MEGA satellites have been featured before at prices of $55, $109, $290, and $630. They typically run on the weekends and have sub-qualifiers throughout the week priced lower than the MEGA buyin amount to allow people with smaller bankrolls to qualify for less. For example, the path toward a MEGA might look like this:

Freeroll --> $11 Super Satellite --> $109 MEGA satellite

Then the MEGA works like a normal qualifier with a certain number of seats guaranteed typically between 3 and 40.

VENOM Vault

ACR is bringing back the VENOM Vault, which involves the distribution of keys that can open the Vault and reveal randomized prizes. The prizes include VENOM seats as well as Survivor Flip Step Tickets. The Venom Vault is not yet active, but we expect ACR Poker to reactivate it any day now.

In the past, everyone got one free key to the Vault. In addition, they could pay 300 Combat Points or $2.99 to purchase an additional key. Perhaps the most interesting way of earning extra keys is by completing listed challenges. For example, during one instance of the Venom Vault, you could play 25 raked cash game hands in a day to receive three keys or play five tournaments in one day to get a single key.

The Venom Vault is traditionally accessible from the My Account section of the poker software.

Start Planning Today

All things considered, these two VENOMs are bound to be some of the biggest online poker tournaments of the year in terms of number of users participating and total prize money up for grabs. You only need to look at the outcome of the prior Venom tournaments to realize that. With so many opportunities to gain entry happening on a daily basis, it makes sense to take a crack at it and see if you can emerge from the season hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars richer.

Of course, in order to do so, you must have an account in good standing with ACR Poker or another reputable site on the Winning Poker Network. We advise our readers to register for ACR with our exclusive ACR Poker bonus code PRB10FREE. This will enable you to receive $10 with no deposit required. What's more, you’ll also get a 100% up to $2,000 bonus on your initial deposit. Read this detailed ACR review to learn more.

If you’d rather head elsewhere, then ACR Poker has several sister sites that provide the same access to the Venom and the rest of the tournament schedule although some of their welcome promos might be different. Check out these reviews of BlackChip Poker and Ya Poker (non-US) for information about these alternate WPN skins.

Last updated July 1, 2026 – by Max Golden, Editor-in-Chief

Previous Venom Details