Lex Veldhuis has officially returned to poker streaming after a period of relative inactivity in 2025.
While confirming his return to the Twitch airwaves, the veteran professional dropped another pearl in the form of his departure from PokerStars, ending a sponsorship that has lasted more than 15 years.
Although Veldhuis did not reveal the specific reasons for the breakup, he noted that he is focused on a “new chapter” for 2026, starting the year in “free agent” mode, one of the most prominent in the poker industry.
“2025 is already in the rearview mirror,” he told the chat. “That’s where I want it to stay. I know that you are all curious about everything that has happened. I felt that it was time to start a new chapter, a new beginning,” said the Dutch player.
“I’m excited about this year. I really want to play a lot of poker.”
The question everyone is now asking is this: having left PokerStars, will there be a poker room that will sign him as an ambassador?
“It’s been 17 years,” he explained to his chat, avoiding going into details about future sponsorships. “The worst thing you can do after a long relationship is jump right into another one,” she said.
Where has Veldhuis been?
After winning his first World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title in September 2024, Veldhuis was excited to continue streaming from his custom studio and told PokerNews that he had “several pretty crazy new things” planned.
However, after losing the Best Streamer award at the 2024 Global Poker Awards to fellow PokerStars ambassador Benjamin “Spraggy” SpraggVeldhuis was conspicuous by its absence for the rest of 2025.
There was no place for Veldhuis as captain in the SCOOP League 2025and his live streams on Twitch did not include poker, but rather focused on chess, League of Legends and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Lex Live in Bratislava was a different opportunity for Veldhuis to interact with his community again, and his last poker-related appearance was on the final season of The Big Game on Tour, where he faced off several times against Alan Keating.
However, the new year has brought Veldhuis a new opportunity to stream again. Voted Best Streamer at the 2018 and 2019 Global Poker Awards, Veldhuis returned directly to the tables, more specifically to those of GGPoker.
An automated notice in his chat reads: “Lex is currently playing from the Netherlands and can only grind on GGPoker, he is not a sponsored pro.”
After briefly tinkering with the site’s setup, including how to adjust the peel card option and activate the four-color deck, Veldhuis quickly became familiar with GGPoker’s tournament offerings.
Finally he opted for a Bounty Hunters Special [7-Max] the $108 the buy-inplaying this tournament on a single table while setting up his streaming setup. Veldhuis would break a pair of tens with Ace-Queen on the bubble and established himself in the final stages, eventually prevailing to win the tournament and pocket $2,541.22. Just over half of that prize ($1,240.32) came from his five eliminations in the tournament.
Lex Veldhuis’ career in poker
Veldhuis started playing poker in 2004 and abandoned his criminology studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam to pursue poker professionally.
In 2009, Veldhuis joined PokerStars as an ambassador and appeared regularly in early episodes of High Stakes Poker y The Big Game. During his time as an ambassador and member of Team PokerStars Online, Veldhuis played millions of hands online and achieved Supernova Elite status for three consecutive years.
As one of the most well-known poker streamers, Veldhuis has over 300,000 followers on Twitch.
Will Shillibier
