Highest-earning poker players of all time

FabrikaSimf // Shutterstocck Big money. That’s what comes with being one of the highest-earning poker players of all time. How big? Think to the tune of $65.3 million. That’s the 19-year earnings of the #1 player on this list. Not bad for someone who started playing online as a teenager, as did many of these high rollers. Who made the list of the top 10 all-time winners in professional poker history? And what’s more: How did they get their starts? Many of the stories are similar. This ranking also includes the titles these players claimed, how many coveted World Series of Poker gold bracelets they have in their possession, and their biggest payouts. After all, you don’t climb into the upper echelon of history without marking at least a few milestones along the way. To narrow down the wide field of professional players to all-time greats, BestOdds used data from The Hendon Mob. Winnings are inflation-adjusted and accurate as of May 13. Each rounder has won more than $46 million, and one of them has 10 World Series of Poker bracelets. That’s tied for the second-most ever and may be even more impressive than their winnings, which were “only” good enough to get them to #8 on the list. #10. David Peters Pam Walker // Shutterstock – All-time winnings: $46,055,048 – Nationality: American With the nickname the “Silent Assassin,” of course David Peters is a formidable opponent. The self-taught star has won four World Series of Poker bracelets and a WSOP Circuit ring. In 2008, he won a WSOP Circuit $1,060 No Limit Hold’em event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, taking home $86,908 and the ring. Eight years later, Peters claimed his first bracelet and $412,557 in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event at the 47th WSOP; he was also named Global Poker Index Player of the Year and Card Player Player of the Year. He captured two of his three other bracelets in WSOP Online championships in 2020 and 2021, and his 2022 bracelet garnered him $1.2 million as well. In 2024, he has two wins and a top prize of $790,000. #9. Isaac Haxton Amnaj Khetsamtip // Shutterstocck – All-time winnings: $48,078,901 – Nationality: American One of a handful of Magic: The Gathering players named here, Isaac Haxton started playing poker in high school and dropped out of university to compete full time, though he later earned a degree in philosophy with an emphasis in logic and science. Also a chess prodigy, he made $40,000 in his first year as a professional and $500,000 in his second, Brown Alumni Magazine reported. Haxton has won nine tournaments since 2022, including his first WSOP bracelet and $1.7 million in the $25,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller 8-Handed event in June 2023. He earned his second-biggest win in September 2023, securing $2.8 million by triumphing in the PokerGO Tour’s Super High Roller Bowl VIII. In 2018, Haxton had won the fifth edition of the event and $3.7 million. He has 11 wins of more than $1 million. #8. Erik Seidel Ethan Miller // Getty Images – All-time winnings: $49,570,177 – Nationality: American Erik Seidel’s competitive vein didn’t surface through poker. He loved games and at 12 appeared on the show “To Tell the Truth.” Later, he dropped out of college to play backgammon. He took notice of poker during that time but didn’t make the switch right away–instead, he became a stockbroker from 1985 until the 1987 crash. Unemployed, he returned to gaming, this time via poker. A year later, he competed in his first WSOP, placing second and winning $280,000. Seidel’s key accomplishments over the years include 10 WSOP bracelets, 60 final tables, the 2008 World Poker Tour title, and seven prizes of $1 million-plus. His starring role at that 1988 WSOP final table was immortalized in the movie “Rounders,” and he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010. #7. Mikita Badziakouski Canva – All-time winnings: $52,853,743 – Nationality: Belarusian Mikita Badziakouski earned $7.1 million in a Big One for One Drop event in December 2023, clearing his previous best of $5.3 million from the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in South Korea in 2018. He won a WSOP bracelet and $1.5 million in 2021 and at 32 is the youngest person on this list by almost three years. Badziakouski grew up playing chess and cards and spent four years as a child sports bettor. He has said poker is the perfect game to satisfy his biggest passions: intellectual rivalry and gambling. Badziakouski got his professional start in Ukraine in 2010. His first huge payday–$240,925–came from the European Poker Tour in 2016. He won $550,412 in Monaco less than six months later and his first title in 2017 at the Aussie Millions Poker Championship. #6. Dan Smith Anton27 // Shutterstock – All-time winnings: $54,540,823 – Nationality: American Dan Smith knows strategy. His keen chess skills won him a scholarship to the University of Maryland, but he dropped out as a first-year student to pursue professional poker. Just a year later, the 19-year-old won the Heartland Poker Tour’s $1,500 + $150 No Limit Hold’em main event, bringing home $101,960. Smith had a banner year in 2012, kicking it off by taking the Aussie Millions Poker Championship and more than $1 million. He won five other tournaments, including a $1.2 million prize in Barcelona, Spain, and by year’s end had amassed $3.7 million in winnings. He won a WSOP bracelet in 2022, but his biggest payout came in 2019, when he finished third in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in London to claim a cool $8.8 million. #5. Daniel Negreanu Gail Oskin // Getty Images – All-time winnings: $55,355,654 – Nationality: Canadian Whereas many of the players on this list left college to play poker full time, Daniel Negreanu dropped out of high school to pursue the game. At 21, he headed to Sin City, ready to go pro. After losing his bankroll, though, he returned home to Toronto. A year later, in 1997, Negreanu prevailed in the United States, being named Best All Around Player at the World Poker Final. By 1998, he had won his first WSOP title and bracelet–his first of six. It was his first WSOP event, and Negreanu earned the nickname “Kid Poker” as the youngest player to have accomplished the feat. Negreanu won his standout prize in 2014 during the $1,000,000 No Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop, taking home $8.3 million with a second-place finish. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014. #4. Jason Koon Canva – All-time winnings: $56,744,010 – Nationality: American Jason Koon was working toward his master’s of business administration and finance on a track scholarship at West Virginia Wesleyan College when he injured his hip. While he recovered, a friend introduced him to online poker. It clicked. After graduation, in 2008, Koon bypassed the corporate world for a career in professional poker. He was highly profitable by April 2009, winning the Spring Championship of Online Poker’s $302,000 purse. He also began playing live tournaments via the WSOP that year. Koon’s 2021 was particularly momentous. He finally grabbed a WSOP bracelet, winning the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship in Las Vegas. He has piled up 28 victories and won $2.1 million or more four times, including as recently as a year ago in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Cyprus. #3. Stephen Chidwick Anton27 // Shutterstock – All-time winnings: $58,017,584 – Nationality: English Stephen Chidwick won 101 seats to the WSOP main event before he could legally play in the tournament, according to Run It Once. In 2008, when Chidwick was old enough to hit the scene, he seized first place and $88,760 in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. Chidwick has been on the rise ever since. Fast-forward to the inaugural U.S. Poker Open in 2018, when he grabbed the “champion” title plus $1.3 million for two wins and five cashes in the eight-tournament series. Chidwick won his first WSOP bracelet in the 2019 $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha High Roller 8-Handed event–along with $1.6 million. Six weeks later, he claimed $5.4 million–nearly tripling his next-biggest haul–by finishing fourth in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in London. #2. Justin Bonomo LightField Studios // Shutterstock – All-time winnings: $64,134,418 – Nationality: American Justin Bonomo, who began playing online poker at 16 after playing Magic: The Gathering all over the world since 9, left the country to legally compete in live events. In 2005, a jaunt to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ended with a 30th-place finish and $15,600. In France a month later, he snagged fourth place and $40,815 at the European Poker Tour’s No Limit Hold’em event–and became the youngest player at a final table of a televised poker tournament. Bonomo picked up speed from there. His first entry into the WSOP occurred in 2007, and he cashed in three events, including a fourth-place showing in the $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event, which was worth $156,040. He now has three bracelets and one ring. Bonomo’s biggest victory came in the 2018 $1,000,000 No Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop event. He walked away with $10 million, the second-highest single tally among those on this list. #1. Bryn Kenney Pablo Blazquez Dominguez // Getty Images – All-time winnings: $65,333,001 – Nationality: American From August 2019 to December 2021, Bryn Kenney was the biggest live tournament winner in poker history. How did the New Yorker get there? It started with a little help from a friend. Kenney, who began playing online poker at 17, was later staked by Zack “Monkey101” Stewart, whom he met in the Bahamas. After he won enough to play on his own, he rattled off a 30-40-day winning streak. In 2014, he claimed his first WSOP bracelet and $153,220 in winnings in the $1,500 10-Game Mix event. Kenney’s best performance happened in 2019 at the Triton Million for Charity, which had a buy-in of $1,337,962. Though he finished second, the deal he struck with Aaron Zang when they were the only two players left at the final table allowed him to earn the largest payday ever: $20.5 million. Data reporting by Karim Noorani. Story editing by Mike Taylor. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Lois Hince.  This story originally appeared on BestOdds and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.