New WSOP Champion Lucas Jumalon Wants To Bring Online Poker Back To The US

Poker championship bracelet, chip stacks and U.S. passports representing Lucas Jumalon’s push for regulated online poker.

Lucas Jumalon, 22, of Spokane, Washington, won the 2026 WSOP Main Event for $10,000,000.
He led the final table wire to wire, the first chip leader to close it out since Koray Aldemir in 2021.
In a new PokerOrg interview, Jumalon said he wants to help “get online poker back in the US completely.”
His home state, Washington, is one of the toughest places in the country to play online poker.

Lucas Jumalon Eyes A Bigger Prize

Lucas Jumalon’s online poker push comes after his historic 2026 WSOP Main Event victory. Poker’s newest world champion isn’t just planning what to do with his money. He wants to change where Americans can play. Lucas Jumalon, a 22-year-old from Spokane, Washington, won the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event. He earned the $10,000,000 first prize after leading the final table from start to finish. In an exclusive PokerOrg interview, Jumalon said he plans to use his platform to support legal online poker nationwide. The US online poker market has been restricted state by state for 15 years. A young, popular champion taking up the cause is worth watching.

A Wire-To-Wire Run To The Title

Jumalon came into the 2026 Main Event final table as the chip leader and never let go. He entered the final table as chip leader and went on to win the bracelet. He is the first player to do so since Koray Aldemir in 2021. That shows how difficult it is to hold the lead under poker’s brightest lights. The final table aired on ESPN, and Jumalon closed it out with his coach, Patrick “Pads” Leonard, in his corner. If you want to understand why the Main Event carries this kind of weight, our guide to the World Series of Poker breaks down the $10,000 event that crowns poker’s world champion every summer.

A Champion With A Plan

Speaking to PokerOrg’s Craig Tapscott for “The Interview,” Jumalon said he wants to be more than a one-tournament story. “I want to be the best poker player I possibly can at the end of the day,” he said. “That’s my main priority.” But he also sees a job to do off the felt. “I think poker has really been needing someone to take the reins,” he told PokerOrg. “It feels like poker needs a little bit more juice and oomph to get it over the hill.”

That idealism ran through the whole conversation. “People have kind of given up on the ‘poker dream.’ But it’s still alive and well,” Jumalon said. “I just did it. It’s possible if you’re willing to put in the time.”

Why The Online Poker Push Matters

The part US players will care about most is Jumalon’s stated goal. “I will get involved in some of the legalities behind the game and try to get online poker back in the US completely,” he told PokerOrg. “It would give some hope to the younger guys that some things are still possible.”

It’s a bigger ask than it sounds. Legal online poker in the US isn’t banned outright, but it also isn’t nationwide. It’s regulated state by state, and only a handful of states currently offer licensed, real-money games, a reality shaped by the 2006 UIGEA and the 2011 “Black Friday” crackdown. If you want to know exactly where you can and can’t play today, our state-by-state legal guide lays it out, and our roundup of real-money online poker options covers where US players actually have legal games.

There’s an irony in the champion leading this charge, too. Jumalon is from Washington, one of the least forgiving states in the country when it comes to internet poker. As our Washington poker laws guide explains, real-money online poker is treated far more harshly there than in most of the US, which means the new champ can’t simply fire up a regulated game at home. That personal stake may be part of why he’s talking about “the legalities behind the game” in the first place.

Can One Player Move The Needle?

No single champion writes gambling law. Online poker’s expansion has come slowly, one statehouse at a time, and that’s unlikely to change because of one interview. What a popular young champion can do is put a face and a voice to the cause. Chris Moneymaker did it for the live game in 2003; a wire-to-wire ESPN champion talking openly about legalization could do something similar for the online conversation, especially with players coming up behind him. Whether that translates into new bills or new regulated states is a much longer story, and one we’ll keep tracking.

What This Means

For now, nothing about the law has changed, and players should still check what’s legal where they live before sitting down. But the sport just gained an enthusiastic, marketable champion who says he wants to spend some of his newfound platform arguing for regulated online poker in the US. That’s good news for anyone who’d like to see more states offer safe, licensed games. We’ll be watching to see whether Jumalon turns the talk into action, and we’ll cover it here as the state-by-state picture develops.

Sandra is a content writer and editor specializing in online poker and iGaming. She covers poker sites, game formats, industry news, and US online poker laws for Legal US Poker Sites.