Marrakech lands two international poker festivals in seven weeks
The Casino de Marrakech hosted the Unibet Open's first Moroccan stop from 24 September to 4 October, and the Irish Open brings its first North African festival to the same room from 10 to 15 November. Two tours, one venue, seven weeks apart.
Morocco's oldest casino has had a busy autumn. The Casino de Marrakech, open inside the Es Saadi resort since 1952, played host to the Unibet Open from 24 September to 4 October 2026 — eleven days, a 12,000 MAD Main Event on 50,000 chips and a 24,750 MAD Super High Roller to close — and will do it again from 10 to 15 November, when the Irish Open arrives with 36 events and a EUR 1,155 Main Event.
The two festivals are structured very differently and that is the interesting part. Unibet published every buy-in in Moroccan dirham, as an entry fee plus an administration fee, and built the week around three multi-day anchors: the UDSO 550, the Main Event and a High Roller that started on 175,000 chips. The Irish Open has gone the other way, packing 36 events into six days with buy-ins quoted in euros from EUR 140 to EUR 3,000, including the first Hendon Mob Championship ever staged in North Africa.
What they share is the room. Es Saadi lists the World Poker Tour National, the World Series of Poker Circuit, the Winamax SISMIX and the Marrakech Poker Open among the events the casino has hosted, and its management counts the Irish Open stop as the venue's 69th international festival. For a country with one casino poker room of real international standing, that is a dense calendar.
One practical note for anyone travelling: both tours play in dirham at the cage whatever currency the schedule advertises. The Irish Open says plainly that its euro figures may move slightly with the exchange rate, though the dirham's peg keeps that movement small. Marrakech keeps the same clock as Dublin and London.
Read the original at Unibet Open — Marrakech 2026 event page →