Jack McClelland, Who Helped Build the WSOP and Bellagio Into Poker Powerhouses, Dies at 74

^{Jack McClelland transformed the WSOP and Bellagio poker room, leaving behind a lasting legacy in the game. (Photo: courtesy of WSOP)}

The poker world is mourning the loss of Jack McClelland, the influential tournament director whose steady hand helped shepherd the World Series of Poker from its rough-and-tumble days into a global spectacle, and later turned the Bellagio into one of the game’s premier stages. McClelland, inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014, died last week in Las Vegas. He was 74.

A Legacy of Excellence

McClelland’s rise was pure Las Vegas: he started out in the 1970s as a dealer at the Sahara, moved up to floor supervisor, and caught the eye of Eric Drache, then running the WSOP. Drache hired him in the early 1980s, beginning a run in which McClelland presided over the tournament’s explosive growth. Under his watch, the pinnacle event of the tournament, the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship (now called “The Main Event”), swelled from just over 100 entries to more than 350, while the series itself expanded from 14 tournaments to 21.

After leaving the WSOP in 1999, McClelland took on his most audacious project: launching and managing Bellagio’s poker room. Opened in 2002, the room quickly became the game’s center of gravity, hosting early marquee stops of the World Poker Tour and attracting the biggest names in poker. By the time McClelland retired in 2013, Bellagio had become synonymous with high-stakes action and world-class tournament play.

Skills on the Felt

Though best known as a tournament director, McClelland was no stranger to the felt. He learned Seven Card Stud from his grandmother, and over the years collected more than 254 tournament cashes, highlighted by a fifth-place finish in the 2021 Seven Card Stud World Championship, behind Phil Hellmuth and champion Anthony Zinno. His lifetime earnings topped $554,093.

McClelland’s 2014 induction into the Poker Hall of Fame came after an outpouring of support from players who believed the Hall should recognize builders as well as stars. That year he went in alongside Daniel Negreanu, one of the game’s modern legends.

Tributes poured in on social media Monday. Negreanu called him “a true pioneer … who helped shape the WSOP, with humor, wit, charm, and intelligence.” Phil Hellmuth posted a video remembering him as both “the foremost tournament director” and “a top Stud player.” Longtime player Shawn Rice remembered him as “a super great and honorable guy,” who was still grinding the Seniors events well into his 70s.

McClelland is remembered not only for what he built but for how he carried himself: with kindness, fairness, and a love of the game that endured to the end.