Aussie Millions (AM)

The Aussie Millions (AM) is the annual poker festival of the Crown casino in Melbourne, Australia. Its official name is the Crown Australian Poker Championship, and its first championship was played in July 1998. For most of its history it filled the January slot on the calendar and drew a mix of local players and international professionals.

The festival is a single annual stop at Crown Melbourne. The 2026 edition ran from April 24 to May 10 with 18 tournaments, and the official Aussie Millions page at Crown Melbourne put the combined prize pools above AUD 22.5 million. Its centerpiece is a multi-flight Main Event with an AUD 10,600 buy-in (~US$7,500). Around it sit Challenge events for high-stakes regulars and mixed games such as H.O.R.S.E., Pot-Limit Omaha and 8-Game, so the schedule has more variety than a typical Hold'em series.

High buy-ins have been part of the festival for two decades. The Main Event buy-in rose to AUD 10,000 in 2003. In 2006 the festival added an AUD 100,000 Challenge, which the organizers billed as the highest buy-in of any poker tournament at the time, and in 2011 an AUD 250,000 event won by Erik Seidel. Main Event champions include Tony Bloom in 2004, Gus Hansen in 2007 and Bryn Kenney in 2019.

After the January 2020 edition the series went quiet: the 2021 festival was postponed because of COVID-19, and Crown did not run poker tournaments for several years. The comeback in 2026 ended a six-year break. The Aussie Millions 2026 Main Event drew 770 entries and an AUD 7.7 million (~US$5.5 million) prize pool, and Brisbane's Malcolm Trayner took the title.