Esa Homayun wins Mega Millions XXIV on bike

The Parkwest Bicycle Casino near Los Angeles, California has closed its huge Winning O’The Green party with a bang. The massive series ran from February 28 to April 18 and included the venue World Series of Poker circuit stop. He ended up with the $1.5 million guaranteed Mega Millions XXIV event, a 13-day tournament featuring over 30 initial flights and direct entry on day two.

As of the close of registrations, a total of 4,817 entries had been made, creating a prize pool of $2,147,490. 2,560 entries were made at the $275 admission price, with another 2,078 at the $560 level. Then, another 179 entries were made for $3,350 on Day 2. Nearly half a million dollars were also paid out via the finals in -the-money from Day 1 and to players who qualified for Day 2 multiple times during the initial flights.

Almost two weeks after the cards first aired for this huge tournament, one player has finally won the last pot. That was West Hills, CA resident Esa Homayun who secured $266,470 for the win. This was by far his highest score in a live tournament, sweeping the $8,847 he earned for a fifth-place finish in a $400 buy-in event during 2021 Venetian DeepStack Extravagance I.

The final day of this event began with just seven contenders left after David Uvaydov busted when his AK failed to clear Steven Kim’s pocket nines. According to venue tournament blog, Uvaydov pledged to play in at least 32 of this tournament’s 33 opening flights to see if he could turn a profit. He ended up finishing eighth overall for $35,885. After exiting the initial flights with just over $1,000 in net losses, he ended up with nearly $35,000 in total profit.

Homayrun grabbed the chip lead into the last seven, with Jason Wasser on the short stack. Wasser ended up outlasting Sean Wingruber (7th – $45,765), Manas Gandhi (6th – $58,300) and Michael Tabriz (5th – $75,495) to reach the final four. At that point, the remaining players accepted a real which redistributed the remaining prize money as follows based on their stacks at the time of the deal.

There was still nearly $80,000 in prize money that the final four had saved up to play, along with the title. Homayun then eliminated Kim (4th – $162,070) and Millard (3rd – $188,405) to take a more than 3:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Wasser.

In the final hand, all the chips went all-in preflop with Wasser holding kings4 to the Q of Homayun. The blackboard read Kj103 on the turn, giving Homayun a king-high straight and leaving Wasser with no draw. Wasser earned $174,360 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the final table results: