Head of ART, Fred Leung: "A new poker boom is happening in Asia"

The Asian Poker Tour series has wrapped up in Incheon (South Korea). Over 10 days, 106 events took place. The total prize pool amounted to $11.4 million, and the Main Event, which drew 1,393 participants, became the largest international tournament in Incheon's history. The schedule featured events ranging from $10,000 down to $400, with player parties happening in between.

APT CEO Fred Leung summed up the series and stated that Asia is becoming the center of a new poker boom:
"Asia is poker's last gold mine, so to speak. Everyone's waiting for where the next poker boom will be or something like that. I'll tell you it's happening right now. The rest of the world just doesn't realize that it started long ago.

I stepped away from poker for four years — from late 2018 to early 2022. When I came back, I saw that interest was really growing. And it's happening in markets that didn't exist before. At one of the first tournaments in Vietnam, I couldn't believe how many people were playing. Before, maybe ten people took part, and now it's thousands. And you can see this in many countries across Asia. People here have a huge passion for the game."

In addition, Leung emphasized that the series' Main Event, the APT Championship, is aimed at the global market, not just the Asian audience. The series CEO also expressed his desire for the event to consistently attract a four-figure number of participants by 2030.

To attract players from around the world, APT this year signed a sponsorship agreement with the online room Natural8, owned by GGPoker. As a result, the series received advertising in the WSOP 2026 broadcasts and a promo booth at the Paris casino.
"When it comes to the APT Championship, we're targeting the global market. The series as a whole isn't limited to Asia, but the APT Championship is more focused on attracting players from all over the world.

That's exactly why we partnered with WSOP and secured our presence in Vegas. Obviously, many of the same players who could come to our tournament were there. If you can play a $10,000 event in Las Vegas, you can play a $10,000 tournament in Taipei too."

The APT Championship 2026 will take place in November in Taiwan. In 2025, the tournament set a record, gathering a field of 671 participants and building a prize pool of nearly $6.2 million against a $5 million guarantee.

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