Live poker is returning to the oldest casino on earth. La Notte Degli Assi runs at the Casino di Venezia from October 11 to 19, 2026, headlined by a €1,000,000 guaranteed Main Event with entry flights starting at €400.
The venue is the draw as much as the guarantee. The Casino di Venezia was founded in 1638 and is the undisputed oldest casino in the world — older than the concept of a casino as most countries understand it, and older than the United States by well over a century.
The room
In the 1950s the casino moved to its current home: a 15th-century Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal. The building housed Venetian Doges, and it was the final residence of the composer Richard Wagner, who died there in 1883.
The gaming floor still runs Chemin de Fer and French Roulette alongside the modern offering — a continuity with the venue's origins that most historic casinos abandoned decades ago.
Poker has a real history here too. WPT Venice ran from 2009 to 2013, with Rocco Palumbo taking the most recent title at the 2013 Grand Prix. More recently the room hosted a PokerGO Tour stop in 2022, drawing international high rollers to No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha and Short Deck events.
A €1 million guarantee at €400 is a different proposition from either of those. This is a mass-market festival in a venue that has historically hosted elite ones.
The Main Event structure
The Main Event is multi-flight with a two-tier pricing structure.
Early flights run Days 1A-1D from October 11 to 13 at €400 with €300 re-entry. Prime flights — Days 1E through 1I plus a Last Chance flight — run October 15 to 17 at €600 with €400 re-entry.
One point of caution: the published schedule table lists Day 1E on Wednesday October 14 at 7:30 pm at €400/€300, with the €600 pricing beginning at Day 1F on Thursday October 15. Players should confirm the tier of the specific flight they intend to enter with the organisers before registering, as the announcement text and the schedule table are not fully consistent on this point.
All Day 1 entries receive a 200,000 starting stack with 30-minute levels and late registration through Level 10. The exception is the Saturday October 17 Last Chance flight, which runs a faster 20-minute clock.
Day 2 is Sunday October 18 at 3:00 pm, and the Final Day is Monday October 19 at 3:00 pm. Both play 45-minute levels and are closed to new entry. A Sorteggio Caccia Al Tesoro draw precedes Day 2 at 2:00 pm on the Sunday.
Across nine days the festival lists 20 scheduled entries, with two Day 1 flights on most days — an afternoon start at 2:00 or 3:00 pm and an evening start at 7:30 pm.
The High Roller and satellites
The €1,500 High Roller plays its Day 1 on Wednesday October 14 at 8:00 pm with a 250,000 stack, 40-minute levels, ten levels of late registration and €1,500 re-entry. The Final Day is Thursday October 15 at 4:00 pm.
Three satellite routes feed it and the Main Event:
- €180 Satellite to the High Roller — Tuesday October 13, 8:00 pm. €180 re-entry, 75,000 stack, 20-minute levels.
- Freeroll Satellite — Wednesday October 14, 3:00 pm. 12 guaranteed tickets, optional €20 rebuys, 75,000 stack.
- Mega Satellite — Thursday October 15, 3:00 pm. 25 guaranteed tickets, €60 buy-in with €40 rebuys, 100,000 stack.
There is also a side event, L'Aperitivo degli Assi, on Monday October 12 at 8:00 pm — a €150 No-Limit Hold'em tournament with €150 re-entry, a 100,000 stack, 20-minute levels and late registration through Level 8.
Does a €1 million guarantee clear at €400?
This is the question that decides whether the festival is a value opportunity or a routine one.
With a €400 buy-in, after rake perhaps €330-€350 goes to the prize pool. Reaching €1 million therefore requires somewhere in the region of 2,900 to 3,000 entries if the field were entirely €400 buy-ins. The €600 prime flights improve the arithmetic — those contribute roughly €500 each — so a realistic mix might need around 2,200 to 2,600 total entries across nine flights.
That is an ambitious but not unreasonable target for a multi-flight Italian festival with a Venice backdrop and re-entry available on every flight. Italian poker has a large domestic player base, October is a good month for tourism-adjacent events, and nine starting flights with re-entry generates volume quickly.
Where it gets interesting for players is the downside case. If the field lands short, the guarantee creates overlay — free money added to the prize pool by the organiser. First-year guarantees and venue-driven festivals are the two categories most likely to produce it, and this festival is both. Nobody should travel to Venice purely on overlay speculation, but the late flights are worth watching: if entry numbers are lagging by Day 1H, the Last Chance flight becomes a genuinely good-value tournament.
What this means for players
The €400 early flights are the value entry. Same prize pool, lower price, identical Day 2 seat. The trade-off is that the early flights run the standard 30-minute clock rather than anything faster, so there is no structural disadvantage either. If you can make October 11-13, take the cheaper flights.
Confirm your flight's buy-in tier before registering. The published materials conflict on whether Day 1E is €400 or €600. That is a €200 difference on a €400 tournament — worth a phone call.
Satellites here are unusually generous. A freeroll with 12 guaranteed High Roller tickets and a €60 Mega Satellite awarding 25 seats are strong ratios. Players already on site for the Main Event should be playing these rather than buying into the €1,500 directly.
Destination festivals attract recreational fields. A €400 tournament in Venice draws a meaningfully different population than a €400 tournament at a grinder-heavy regional room. Our online poker vs live poker comparison covers how field composition changes the value of a given buy-in, and the tournaments hub explains how multi-flight structures work.
Manage the re-entry temptation. Nine flights with re-entry available on each is a structure designed to extract volume. Decide your total budget before you arrive, not during Day 1F. Our bankroll management guide covers how to set that number, and the UK poker sites page lists rooms running online satellites into European live events for players who would rather qualify than buy in.
Sources: PokerNews