Jesse Yaginuma will not receive a bracelet, nor will he be recognized as the winner of the Millionaire Maker, but he and James Carroll will still split the prize money. [Image: PokerGO.com]
Money but no hardware
Just days after the World Series of Poker opened an investigation into possible chip dumping during the heads-up portion of the $1,500 Millionaire Maker event, it has announced that both players will be paid, but no bracelet will be awarded.
“We have concluded that in order to uphold the integrity of the game and to uphold our official WSOP Tournament Rules, no winner will be recognized and no bracelet will be awarded for this year’s tournament,” the WSOP posted on social media late Monday night. “The remaining prize pool will be split between the final two players.”
The victory would have been Jesse Yaginuma’s fourth career WSOP bracelet and first in a live event. The WSOP did not specify how the prize money would be “split,” but that wording would imply an equal distribution. Yaginuma’s first-place purse would have been $1,255,180 and James Carroll’s second prize would have been $1,012,320. If the prize money is divided equally, they will now each get $1,133,750.
Heads-up play looked suspicious
The WSOP’s investigation was the result of suspicious play between Yaginuma and Carroll once they squared off one-on-one at the end of the Millionaire Maker last Wednesday night. Carroll took a 10-to-1 chip lead into the heads-up competition and seemed to play unusually poorly, while Yaginuma played nearly perfectly to erase the gigantic deficit and go on to win the tournament.
It is certainly not impossible to make such a massive comeback in poker, but it is unusual, especially without repeatedly going all-in, something Yaginuma did not do.
may have been intentionally signaling the strength of his hand
Poker fans and experts paying close attention to the action believed that Carroll may have been intentionally signaling the strength of his hand to his opponent to allow him to make strategic raises and folds.
The most outspoken about the alleged collusion and chip dumping was ACR Pro Rob Kuhn, who posted screenshots on X:
Kuhn believed that Carroll would bet an odd multiple of a million chips (ex: 19 million) if he had a weak hand or was bluffing, and an even multiple (ex: 22 million) if he was strong. Yaginuma could then make perfect reads, fueling his rise to the bracelet.
Yaginuma had another million on the line
It is extremely unusual that something like this would happen heads-up. In fact, according to the WSOP rulebook, this may not technically have been collusion, as it is defined as “any agreement between or among two (2) or more Participants to engage in illegal or unethical acts against other Participants.”
Since there were no other participants, it may not have been collusion.
Yaginuma had won a ClubWPT Gold contest that would award him $1m if he won a bracelet
The reason they allegedly did it, though, was because Yaginuma had won a ClubWPT Gold contest that would award him $1m if he won a bracelet in one of a select group of 2025 WSOP events, of which the Millionaire Maker was one.
Thus, while Yaginuma denied it, it is alleged that he and Carroll made a deal to let Yaginuma win, claim the million dollars, and share it with his opponent. To reiterate, this is just speculation and would explain why the end of the tournament looked so fishy.
ClubWPT Gold ambassador Doug Polk confirmed to PokerNews late last week that ClubWPT would award the $1m to Jesse Yaginuma regardless of the outcome of the WSOP’s investigation. Thus, while Yaginuma will not receive his fourth bracelet and will not go into the archives as the winner of the Millionaire Maker, both he and James Carroll will still come away much richer than they were a week ago.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
