When Jalil Houssain made a deep run in the opening event of the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP), he was thinking about his 50-plus cousins living in Palestine, a war-devastated country at the center of one of the most polarizing and longstanding military conflicts in modern history.
Houssain, who is half Palestinian, ended up finishing runner-up in the $550 Mini Mystery Millions for $265,000 — no small feat for a player playing his first-ever WSOP event and fighting through chronic pain.
Should he have won the event, he may very well have been the first Palestinian-American bracelet winner (according to the US Census Bureau, American Palestinians only make up 0.05% of the US population). And he certainly would have been the first bracelet winner to list his nationality as Palestinian in the WSOP LIVE app.
“Definitely that was on my mind,” Houssain told PokerNews in an emotional interview. “That actually makes me a little sad, because being half Palestinian is something I take a lot of pride in.”
Later in a written statement, he added, “representing Palestinians, a people whom have collectively endured tremendous suffering since the ‘nakba,’ or ‘catastrophe’ of 1948, especially over the past few years in Gaza and the West Bank, is very important to me. And is part of who I am at my core.”
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Representing Palestine at the WSOP
Houssain grew up in San Francisco, but his family heritage goes back to the Middle East. He told PokerNews his Palestinian father and Dutch mother first met in America and decided relocating in the U.S. to start a family was the play.
“They were adventurers. They loved to travel … They ended up getting together (in the US) and decided to stay,” said Houssain.
Houssain still has extended family in Palestine, where he spent a good portion of his childhood. He hasn’t been there in years due to an ongoing medical complication he experienced in 2020, which he said was caused by a rare medical complication from the COVID vaccine and prevented him from playing live poker.
“We would go visit there all the time growing up as kids,” he said. “I have over 50 cousins on that side of my family.”
The Middle Eastern country is involved in a decades-long conflict with neighboring Israel that escalated significantly in recent years. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, about 90% of Gaza’s population was displaced and facing catastrophic food shortages in 2025.
His extended family members were at the top of his mind as he made the final table of the Mini Mystery Millions after getting through a massive field of 20,488 players. And when he came up short of becoming a Palestinian bracelet winner, finishing runner-up to Philip Chun, Houssain responded with tears.
“I know my brothers and sisters in Palestine and Gaza are suffering to no end. And it would have been great to be able to take it down for them and represent.”
Houssain also uttered the Arabic phrase “Alhamdulillah,” which he noted was an Arabic expression of gratitude, and gave a shoutout “to my family and friends who have been watching and supporting me over the last few days.”
“We do it for Ali, my nephew, shoutout to him.”
Houssain isn’t the first player to show Palestine love at the WSOP. 2021 Tag Team winner Samy Dighlawi wore a “Free Palestine” shirt at the final table, while one of poker’s most accomplished players, Justin Bonomo, was nearly disqualified from the 2024 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event for wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh on stream.
And Houssain still has hopes at bringing Palestine a bracelet. “To have come this far in such a massive field tournament, especially it being my first live WSOP event itself, is a blessing. I had a great time and will continue to enjoy playing through the rest of this series. My determination to include Palestine as one of the nations that has a WSOP title and bracelet to its name is strong, and this was only the first opportunity of many to come.”
Check out the PokerNews live updates to read more about Houssain’s run in the WSOP Mini Mystery Millions.
Connor Richards
Senior Editor U.S.