It turns out Daniel Negreanu didn't win 2019 WSOP Player of the Year after all. A data entry errors means Robert Campbell outscored the field to win the title for the first time.

The poker world has spent the better part of the last five days celebrating Daniel Negreanu’s historic third World Series of Poker Player of the Year victory. It appears that those celebrations were a bit too hasty.

A data entry error means that Negreanu did not win the POY after all and Robert Campbell is, in fact, the 2019 WSOP Player of the Year.

WSOP officials released a statement Friday afternoon.

“We have confirmed an error was made in our results for WSOP Event #68, affecting places 32-46. As a result, Daniel Negreanu was given 213.1 points erroneously in this event. We deeply regret this error and its impact,” the statement read. “Recalculating our Player of the Year results has an impact to the standings. Robert Campbell finishes in 1st place in the now final results, with Negreanu dropping to third place. Again, we apologize profusely for the error in our calculations and the impact it has had.”

The data entry error rewarded Negreanu, and 15 other players, with points from the event from the Las Vegas schedule that they did not actually cash in.

Russian poker journalist Alex Elenskiy noticed the error and pointed it out to the WSOP via Twitter on Friday. Based on Elenskiy’s research, it appears that Negreanu was credited with a 36th-place finish in Event #68 ($1,000 Online Championship Event) and was credited with 213.1 POY points.

Negreanu’s WSOP.com profile showed him cashing in Event #68 – even though he did not finish in the money.

As Elenskiy points out, the results for places #32-#46 on WSOP.com for Event #68 are identical to the results for places #32-#46 from Event #87 ($3,000 HORSE).

The results for Event #68 and #87 showing the copied data.

Removing the 213.1 points from Negreanu’s total leaves him with 3,861.78 and places him in third place behind Campbell and Shaun Deeb.

New WSOP POY Standings

PLACE PLAYER POINTS
1 Robert Campbell 3,961.31
2 Shaun Deeb 3,917.32
3 Daniel Negreanu 3,861.78
4 Anthony Zinno 3,322.00
5 Phillip Hui 3,186.17

This would have been Negreanu’s third time winning the WSOP POY award. He first won it in 2004 and then again in 2013.

The 2019 WSOP POY race was hotly contested with Negreanu, Campbell and Deeb all making their way to WSOP Europe in Rozvadov to chase the points necessary. In dramatic fashion, Deeb made the final day of the final event, the €550 Colossus event, thinking he needed a fifth-place finish or better to overtake Negreanu. He actually needed just ninth place or better to pass Campbell. Deeb wound up finishing 11th.

This story was updated to include the statement from the World Series of Poker.