Brazil leads global poker index; see the top 10

Brazil has officially established itself as the world’s largest poker power, according to a global index developed by Ignition Poker Brazil. The study evaluated the top 20 countries based on five key metrics: online tournament titles, global online country ranking, density of elite professional players, average prize per monitored player, and historical prizes adjusted per capita.

Although Brazil has dominated the competition in online categories and global competition rankings, the country is considerably behind when analyzing the total cash prizes relative to its total population.

The main positive highlight, without a doubt, is online dominance. Brazil achieved the highest scores in online titles, national ranking, and professional density, with a remarkable mark of 105 online titles in 2025 – nearly double the second place, the United Kingdom (59).

However, despite leading the overall index with a total score of 63.49, Brazil scored only 0.87 in the prize vs population criterion. This mark is much lower compared to smaller nations like Finland (20.00) and Norway (17.91).

Nevertheless, the index proves the rise of Brazilian poker over 20 years. This trend is driven by the strengthening of the national scene and the constant increase in the number of players in the country.

The methodology that proves Brazil’s dominance in poker

The goal of the International Poker Dominance Score is to highlight the world-leading country in poker. This is done by assigning a score to each of the top 20 countries based on five criteria. They are:

Prize list vs population: Shows the total historical prizes won by players from each of the 20 countries, calculated per capita relative to the country’s population.
Online titles: Shows the number of SCOOP 2025 titles won by country.
Average prize per player: Shows the total prize value of each country divided by the number of monitored players, indicating the average earnings per player.
Global online ranking: Shows the accumulated score by each country in global online poker rankings.
Online professional density: Shows the number of online professional players representing each country among the top 100.

The index calculation

Each criterion has a standardized score on a scale from 0 to 20. These values make up a Total International Poker Dominance Score (on a scale from 0 to 100), allowing identification of the country with the highest score. Brazil, therefore, led the averages among the five categories. Below, see the top 10 of the ranking:

Country	Total score	Prize vs Population	Online titles	Average prize per player	Global Ranking	Online density
Brazil	63.49	0.87	20	2.62	20	20
Finland	48.63	20.00	4.19	12.57	10.29	1.58
United Kingdom	48.53	10.80	11.24	4.82	15.35	6.32
Canada	41.26	13.30	3.43	5.64	14.15	4.74
Sweden	37.80	11.71	4	7.87	11.58	2.63
Austria	33.15	13.09	2.48	2.49	11.94	3.16
Hong Kong	31.51	12.84	0	13.72	4.95	0
Norway	29.18	17.91	0	3.20	7.54	0.53
Malaysia	26.93	3.07	0	20	3.86	0
Russia	24.94	1.83	0	6.10	12.80	4.21

Sources:

Historical poker prize list and monitored players: The Hendon Mob
Global populations: Official government estimates and census data
SCOOP 2025 titles: PokerStars
Global online ranking: Pokerstake
Top 100 global online players: Pokerstake

Thus, to help democratize access to prizes and expand these per capita earnings beyond the elite of tournaments, initiatives like the FreeRolling Poker Series daily free tournaments allow new players to start building their bankroll without an entry fee.

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