Upping the Ante at Mississippi’s Horseshoe Tunica: WSOP, RPGS, and More

There are a lot of casinos and gaming establishments in Mississippi, ranging from riverboat casinos to beachside casino resorts. One of the best casinos to visit for gambling enthusiasts is the Horseshoe Tunica.

In 2024, a woman made news headlines for hitting a huge jackpot at the casino. The woman, Jennifer J., played a Royal Flush while playing at the casino’s Mississippi Stud table. The hand earned Jennifer the $385,219 jackpot. The Horseshoe Tunica is home to various table games like Blackjack and roulette, as well as a poker room hosting 23 live poker tables. At the poker room, guests can play poker variants from Texas Hold’em to three-card poker and Mississippi Stud — where players play against a house dealer instead of against other players at the table.

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Of course, aside from the occasional jackpot headlines, the Horseshoe Tunica is also home to different high-stakes poker tournaments, bringing in gamblers and gaming enthusiasts from out of state. In a previous post, we highlighted how Mississippi’s travel and tourism industry is a key economic driver for the state. According to the Mississippi Tourism Association, the state’s tourism industry had an impact of nearly $7 billion on the state economy back in 2022. Below, we’ll look at some of the notable poker tournaments and events that took place at the Horseshoe Tunica:

RGPS Tunica

In 2023, the RunGood Poker Series (RGPS) was held at the Horseshoe Tunica. A total of 661 entrants participated at the tournament with a massive prize pool of $396,300. Tunica local Jack Keller, son of poker Hall of Famer with the same name, ended up winning the tournament for a career-best score of $62,826 as well as his first RGPS Main Event title.

Keller worked his way through the tournament, besting defending champion Loi Hoang and former champions Cody Stanford and Kevin Broadway. On the first day of the tournament, 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker led in chip count, ending the day with a whopping 1,285,000 chip count. This was miles ahead of everyone else on the list, with the second being newcomer Jacob Schiros, who ended the day at 421,000 chips.

Today, Moneymaker is the face of the leading online poker room ACR Poker. The site is known for hosting the biggest online poker tournaments, including satellite tournaments that allow players to compete at high-stakes international poker events. As part of the site’s team of ACR Pros, Moneymaker also regularly streams poker gameplay on Twitch to share insights and tips for avid players.

WSOP Circuit Event

Another notable poker event held at the Horseshoe Tunica is the recent circuit event series of the 2024/25 WSOP. Horseshoe Tunica hosted the biggest Circuit Event, with buy-ins starting as low as $100. While the WSOP Main Event will feature $1 million in prize money, the prizes for the Horseshoe Tunica circuit event winners are just as lucrative, with a few as high as half a million dollars.

Arkansas resident Jessie Bryant became a six-time World Series of Poker Circuit gold ring winner, and took down his first-ever WSOPC main event title at the Horseshoe Casino after beating out a field of 487 entries. Bryant earned $144,962, making it the second-largest payday of his career. The highest was the $450,400 he secured for a 17th-place finish in the record-setting 2024 WSOP Main Event.

Bryant was the dominant chip leader on the final day of play, having taken out players like William McBrayer in sixth place, Mark Kehrees in fourth place, and Donald Voyle in third place. Bryant’s streak gave him a big 5:1 chip advantage, and eventually won the final hand after narrowly losing the lead to runner-up Dylan Lemery.