Tirana’s Arena Casino Became Europe’s High-Stakes PLO Hub

Tom-Aksel Bedell won €438,000 in the Diamond Poker Series PLO Grand Slam at Arena Casino Tirana after firing eight bullets in the opener. The Norwegian’s freeroll title in January 2025 was the moment a poker-unknown Albanian room stopped looking like a one-week experiment.

The series had sold a €5,000,000 guaranteed week in a capital that still sat off the usual European live trail. The €5,200 opener set a European mark. The €10,300 championship did not fill its guarantee. Both facts belong to the same stop.

Arena Casino Tirana Put Albania on the PLO Map

Diamond Poker Series was created in autumn 2024 by Tarkan Karadas, a long-time live-poker operator, and Christian Stratmeyer, a German businessman. They hired Nick O’Hara, one of Europe’s better-known tournament directors, and pointed the first festival at Arena Casino Tirana on Sheshi Italia 1, beside Air Albania Stadium.

The first PLO Grand Slam ran 4 to 10 November 2024. The €5,000 opener drew 210 entries, then the largest field at that buy-in in Europe, with more than 140 unique players from 36 countries. A €10,000 championship built a €1,203,200 prize pool on a €1,000,000 guarantee. High-stakes four-card regulars had found a room that would host them without burying Omaha inside a Hold’em festival.

Lautaro Guerra, the Spanish PLO specialist who had just won a $100,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Super High Roller for $2.1 million, took third in that first championship. The Tirana casino all-time money list now has him at $618,260, ahead of Bedell at $459,838 and Tom Vogelsang at $413,383. Those three names are the proof the room kept the same customers.

225 Entries Made a European Record at €5,200

The second festival ran 23 to 30 January 2025 with €5,000,000 guaranteed across the week. The €5,200 opener drew 225 entries and a €1,057,500 prize pool. Vogelsang, already a Dutch high-stakes regular with $6,939,866 in recorded live earnings, won it for €234,200.

That 225-entry field beat the November mark by 15 and is the European record at the buy-in. Side events sat around it in 5-card and 6-card Omaha, plus bounties, rather than the usual Hold’em undercard. The room was built for four-card volume, and the volume showed up.

The championship was a different math problem. A €2,000,000 guarantee on a €10,300 buy-in needed a bigger field than the opener’s crowd of specialists. Registration closed at 191 entries. The prize pool landed at €1,880,000, short of the promise, and 23 places were paid.

JANUARY 2025 €10,300 CHAMPIONSHIP PAYOUTS

Guerra moved up from third in November to second in January. Nagy, seventh here, later sat atop the 2026 series ranking with 89.666 points and €322,230 in series prizes. The same short list of PLO names keeps coming back through the door.

Bedell Turned Eight Bullets Into €438,000

Bedell did not buy into the championship the usual way. A Rebuy King promo gave the two players with the most entries on €5,200 Day 1A a ticket to the €10,300 event. He fired eight bullets in the opener, took the seat, and won €438,000 (about $459,838), a new top live score at the time. His recorded live earnings now stand at $5,510,534.

That eight-bullet path is how a specialist €10k actually gets filled. The series paid the most stubborn re-entrants with a seat, then let the extra starting stacks do the rest. A British operator who had never booked Albania called a PLO-only week an interesting first trip, which is the whole venue bet in one line.

Heads-up lasted a few minutes. Guerra shoved Q♥ J♦ 9♥ 5♦. Bedell called with A♣ Q♠ Q♣ 3♣. The board ran A♦ 8♠ 4♥ 5♣ 7♦, and the trophy went to Norway. Tordjman had held a huge chip lead into the final day after knocking out Kovalchuk and Vogelsang. Bedell doubled through Guerra, then through Tordjman, and the lead changed before the last cards.

The First Champion Asked Not to Be Named

The November title is still a blank on the trophy photo. The winner used the alias “Benjamin N” and asked to stay unnamed. So did runner-up “Phil Ejri.” Both sat in a four-way chop with Guerra and Greece’s Nikolaos Lampropoulos.

The 128-entry November championship results show why the payouts look upside down. First officially took €219,200. Second took €166,500. Guerra’s third-place chop share was €170,700. Lampropoulos took €190,800 for fourth, a larger number than first because of the deal. Several later cashes in that event are also listed as unknown.

High-stakes PLO already runs on privacy. Tirana did not fight that habit. Aliases such as “Dima” and “Lion King” still appeared on January chip counts. The series can sell a soccer ambassador and a diamond trophy, and still let the actual winner walk out without a surname.

What Free Hotels and Chip Bonuses Buy the Field

Players in the €5,000 and €10,000 events got a free room for the January week at the 5-star Hotel Marriott Tirana, in the same complex as the casino. Rooms filled fast. Anyone who missed the block was moved to a nearby hotel. A driver waited at the airport by an “Arena Casino Tournament” sign.

The April 2026 return shifted the complimentary stay to Maritim Hotel Plaza Tirana. Players who started both the €5,200 Million Day 1A and the €10,400 Championship Day 1 still qualified. Cash-game regulars could skip those buy-ins and still get the free hotel via cash tables by logging six hours a day at €25/€25 or higher.

HOW TIRANA FILLS A SPECIALIST FIELD

• Early-bird stacks: A 10% chip bonus goes to anyone seated from the first hand, and a 5% bonus to anyone who joins during level 1.
• Rebuy King seats: The two players with the most bullets on €5,000 Day 1A each received a €10,000 championship ticket.
• Unlimited re-entries: Registration stays open through the posted late-reg window, which is how eight bullets become a freeroll.
• Shot clock: Each decision is 20 seconds before the flop and 30 seconds after it, at 8-max tables, with about 15% of the field paid.
• Airport pickup: A driver meets arriving players at the Arena Casino Tournament sign, then the hotel is already on the house for the two majors.

Fees come out of the prize pool at 3% to 6%, depending on the event. Starting stacks on the bigger tournaments sit at 150,000 or 200,000 chips. That is not decoration. Extra chips at the start, a free bed, and a clock that keeps PLO pots moving are the reasons a 225-entry €5,200 field can exist in a city most Hold’em tours still skip.

Kruse’s Poker Job Outlasted His Germany Call-Up

Max Kruse, the former Bundesliga striker and 2020 Olympian, was named official ambassador before the January festival. He won a World Series of Poker Europe gold bracelet in 2022 in the €1,650 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for €134,152. He also played the Tirana schedule as a regular, cashing 20th in the championship for $24,440 and sixth in the €3,300 five-card bounty for $9,018.

Germany gave him 14 caps. His first international goal came against the United States, and he scored three more. In the Bundesliga he recorded 131 goals in 460 league appearances and won the DFL-Supercup in 2015. A move to Manchester United was rumored and never happened.

His national-team place ended after a 2016 incident in which €75,000 in poker winnings was left in a taxi. The club fined him €25,000. A decade later the same player is the face of a PLO festival, grinding 20th in a €10,300 field rather than cutting a ribbon. Hossein Ensan, the 2019 WSOP Main Event champion, was on the billed list for both Tirana trips, along with Hossein Madani, Tom-Aksel Bedell, Polat, and Hansimperator.

Malta, Tallinn and a Season Ranking Followed

The January overlay did not kill the room. Diamond Poker Series now calls itself the home of PLO and scores a 2026 season across multiple stops, with the top of the leaderboard earning covered 2027 buy-ins. Malta opened that season from 19 to 26 January 2026. Tirana returned from 15 to 22 April 2026 with more than €2,000,000 guaranteed across eight Omaha events, including two €1,000,000 guarantees on the €5,200 Million and the €10,400 Championship.

The official April 2026 Tirana PLO schedule also listed a €15,300 progressive knockout, a €25,500 high roller, and 5-card and 6-card side events. Results tables on that page were still empty after the stop was marked completed. The series had already taken the same format to Tallinn, Malta, and Prague in 2025, then back to Tallinn from 15 to 22 September 2026, where Ralfs Blumbergs won the €5,200 event for €123,100 from 106 entries and Alexander Livingston took the championship trophy.

HOW THE TIRANA STOP SPREAD

1. 4 to 10 November 2024: First PLO Grand Slam at Arena Casino Tirana. The €5,000 opener draws 210 entries. An unnamed player chops the championship.
2. 23 to 30 January 2025: Second Tirana week, €5,000,000 guaranteed. The opener hits 225. Bedell wins the championship for €438,000. The €2,000,000 guarantee misses.
3. 19 to 26 January 2026: Malta opens the scored 2026 season at Casino Portomaso.
4. 15 to 22 April 2026: Tirana’s third PLO Grand Slam, eight events, more than €2,000,000 guaranteed, free stay at Maritim Hotel Plaza Tirana.
5. 15 to 22 September 2026: The same tour plays Tallinn, with a live ranking and covered 2027 seats on the line.

The championship that needed house money and the opener that set a European record are still the same product. Tirana did not become Vienna or Barcelona. It became the place four-card regulars already know how to book, which is a quieter outcome than a soccer ambassador, and the one that lasted.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won the first PLO Grand Slam Championship in Tirana?

The November 2024 title was chopped four ways after 128 entries built a €1,203,200 prize pool on a €1,000,000 guarantee, so that first championship did hit its number. The winner used the alias “Benjamin N” and took €219,200. “Phil Ejri” took €166,500 for second. Lautaro Guerra’s third-place share was €170,700, and Nikolaos Lampropoulos took €190,800 for fourth under the deal.

How does the Rebuy King ticket work?

The two players who fire the most entries in the €5,000 Day 1A opener each receive a €10,000 championship seat paid by the series. Bedell used eight entries to win one of those seats in January 2025, then won the championship. It is a re-entry leaderboard, not a satellite, which is why a player can lose all day in the opener and still start the main event with a fresh stack.

Can cash-game players get the free Tirana hotel without buying the majors?

Yes, at the April 2026 stop. Sitting €25/€25 or higher for at least six hours a day during the festival qualified a player for the same covered stay as someone who entered both Day 1A of the €5,200 Million and Day 1 of the €10,400 Championship. January 2025 rooms were at the Marriott in the casino complex. April 2026 rooms were at Maritim Hotel Plaza Tirana.

What table rules does the PLO Grand Slam use in Tirana?

Main events are 8-max with a shot clock of 20 seconds before the flop and 30 seconds after it, TDA rules, and about 15% of the field paid. Prize-pool fees run from 3% to 6% by event. Unlimited re-entries stay open through late registration, and the early-bird bonuses add 10% or 5% to the printed starting stack of 150,000 or 200,000 chips.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of live poker tournaments for information only. It is not betting advice, a tip on any player or event, or a recommendation to gamble. Readers who are considering playing in a casino tournament or cash game should consult a licensed gambling counsellor or their local regulator and only risk money they can afford to lose. Prize pools, guarantees, hotel offers, and player results reflect the cited series pages and databases as of the dates of those events and can change for future stops.