North American Poker Tour

The PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) is a premier live poker tour in the United States, offering unrivaled tournament structures and massive prize pools. Satellites for the NAPT events are available online at PokerStars, PokerStars Michigan, PokerStars New Jersey, and PokerStars Pennsylvania.

The NAPT launched in January 2010 and ran for one season before being suspended midway through its second season. The suspension was a direct result of online poker's "Black Friday" in April 2011.

Harrison Gimbel took down the inaugural NAPT event, the $10,300 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in January 2010.

Gimbel's victory sparked a flurry of stellar names becoming NAPT champions. Such luminaries as Tom Marchese, Joe Tehan, and Galen Hall helped themselves to NAPT titles during the tour's infancy.

Vanessa Selbst, then a member of Team PokerStars, triumphed in the 2010 PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event and walked away with an impressive $750,000. Amazingly, a year later, Selbst won the same tournament for a $450,000 addition to her vast bankroll.

Two days after Selbst's second NAPT victory, "Black Friday" occurred and resulted in several prominent online poker sites, including PokerStars, withdrawing from the United States. Black Friday not only spelled the end of the NAPT but online poker in the United States; but only temporarily.

NAPT Returns To Much Fanfare

In 2023, with the online poker landscape looking much rosier in the United States, the tour returned in November 2023 with the amazing PokerStars NAPT Las Vegas festival at Resorts World.

The comeback edition was won by Sami Bechahed, a French-American poker player and dealer, who defeated a 1,095-entry field to win $268,945 and the title of first NAPT Main Event champion in 12 years.

PokerStars operates in the states of Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, thanks to ever-changing laws regarding online gambling and poker in North America.

NAPT Goes From Strength to Strength

Typically held in November each year since its comeback, there was transatlantic success in 2024 when Brit Nick Marchington won a bumper edition of the tour's Main Event, defeating Joel Micka heads-up to capture a monster payday of $765,200.

2025 would see the NAPT Main Event title back in American hands, as Gal Yifrach got the better of poker legend Thomas Boivin to win $543,025. It was an NAPT Main Event full of storylines as PokerStars Team Pro Jennifer Shahade also made a memorable deep run.

NAPT Main Event Winners