Various changes have been announced for the 2019 WSOP, most of them positive:

1) They are giving away 5 Main Event seats, simply to anyone who swipes their Caesars Rewards (formerly Total Rewards) card:

To help celebrate our 50th, we’re giving away $50,000 in Main Event seats to our loyal tournament players.Players can earn up to five entries for a drawing to be held July 1, 2019. Five seats will be awarded to the 2019 WSOP Main Event.Players can get a free entry by swiping their Caesars Rewards card at the Rio Caesars Rewards desk. Receive additional entries based on your participation in gold bracelet events.Enter two different gold bracelet events, earn a second entry.For every additional gold bracelet event entered after two, you earn another entry to the drawing.Participants may earn a maximum of five entries for the drawing. Simply buy into gold bracelet events, and you will be automatically tracked and entered.

2) They will be giving away $500 to "hot seats" in the cash section every hour.

Everyone knows the Rio Pavilion Ballroom is the home of all levels of live action games throughout the WSOP. Approximately 40 of these live action tables will participate in the hourly “Hot Seat” promotion every day, every hour of the WSOP. A random seat will be drawn each hour, and the player in that seat will receive $500 in cash value Rio casino chips. This promotion runs from June 3 to July 9.

3) Credit cards now accepted at the cage. However, the fees will be brutal, and I don't suggest you do this.

4) Amazon room tables to have automatic shufflers. This will benefit people like me who play a lot of the 3pm events, which tend to be of the non-NL-holdem variety.

5) A new mid-stakes section called "Gorilla Gaming Live Action Tables" will be added to the Pavilion Room, housing the mid-stakes games. This will be in addition to the Kings Lounge, which will return as the high stakes section.

6) There will be a $200 Gavin Smith Memorial Tournament. It will take place on May 28th at 6pm, and some of the proceeds will go to his "family", though as I mentioned before, the only "family" is his two kids, and presumably they will be raised by his ex-wife, who seems irresponsible from everything I've heard. (Gavin had full custody for this reason.)

7) You can now wire money to the WSOP and register for tournaments online.

Source: http://www.wsop.com/news/2019/Apr/10...ONTH-AWAY.html