World Series Of Poker Winners Earnings
| WSOP Titles | WPT Titles | EPT Titles | Poker Earnings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phil Ivey | 9 | 1 | 0 | $17,649,220 |
| 2 | Erik Seidel | 8 | 1 | 0 | $21,499,344 |
| 3 | Allen Cunningham | 5 | 0 | 0 | $12,031,743 |
| 4 | Chris Ferguson | 5 | 0 | 0 | $8,281,926 |
| 5 | Huck Seed | 5 | 0 | 0 | $7,582,816 |
| 6 | John Juanda | 5 | 0 | 0 | $15,113,768 |
| 7 | Mike Matusow | 4 | 0 | 0 | $8,974,373 |
| 8 | Jeff Madsen | 3 | 0 | 0 | $4,054,686 |
| 9 | John Cernuto | 3 | 0 | 0 | $5,352,640 |
| 10 | Carlos Mortensen | 2 | 3 | 0 | $11,598,083 |
| 11 | Eddy Scharf | 2 | 0 | 0 | $1,327,119 |
| 12 | Erick Lindgren | 2 | 2 | 0 | $9,881,849 |
| 13 | Greg Mueller | 2 | 0 | 0 | $2,621,740 |
| 14 | Howard Lederer | 2 | 2 | 0 | $6,571,538 |
| 15 | Jennifer Harman | 2 | 0 | 0 | $2,697,533 |
| 16 | Max Pescatori | 2 | 0 | 0 | $3,322,683 |
| 17 | JC Tran | 2 | 1 | 0 | $10,416,658 |
| 18 | Vanessa Selbst | 2 | 0 | 0 | $8,018,466 |
| 19 | Gus Hansen | 1 | 4 | 0 | $11,240,678 |
| 20 | Andy Bloch | 1 | 0 | 0 | $5,415,383 |
| 21 | David Benyamine | 1 | 1 | 0 | $7,047,146 |
| 22 | Gavin Smith | 1 | 1 | 0 | $5,959,186 |
| 23 | Lee Watkinson | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,146,149 |
| 24 | Robert Mizrachi | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,498,967 |
| 25 | Roland de Wolfe | 1 | 1 | 1 | $5,330,556 |
| 26 | Annie Duke | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,270,549 |
| 27 | Annette Obrestad | 1 | 0 | 0 | $3,910,678 |
WSOP – The Most Prestigious Event on the Poker Calender
The World Series of Poker is the most prestigious event in the poker world. Held annually at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, this series of poker tournaments commences in late May each year and runs for 2 months till towards the end of July.
Feb 15, 2021 World Poker Tour main event winner Jordan Cristos finished second in the event, cashing for $119,232 to bring his lifetime tournament earnings to $3,069,772. This was his first final-table finish.
- Cashing out for just the second time on the World Poker Tour, Qui Nguyen boosted his earnings from a paltry nine grand to well over seven figures with the $8-million WSOP final table victory.
- World Series Of Poker.
During this 2 month period there are usually somewhere in the region of 60 events with buy-ins ranging from $1,500 all the way up to $1million in recent years.
The culmination of each years WSOP is the $10,000 main event where a thousands of players compete for 7+ days to become the next World Series of Poker Champion, enter the history books forever, not to mention take home the massive prize, usually around the $10million mark.
Drawing in the Audience on TV
The main event is the biggest TV spectacle in the poker calender and is broadcast by ESPN. In 2008 the format was changed for the Main Event to include a delayed final table, which meant that in July during the WSOP, the event played until they reduced down to just a final table of 9 players, then the tournament paused, which the final table taking place later that year in October or November.
This allowed for a great deal of press and hype to be built up to the main event and the players involved and leading to the glitz and glamour of the final table taking place in front of thousands on the stage of the Penn and Teller Theatre at the Rio, and in front of many more covered live on ESPN with just a 15 minute delay so that hole cards can be shown. This has been a great success and really raised the profile of the sport.
The TV coverage on ESPN is lead by Lon McEachern and Norman Chad which have become household figures to regular poker fans.
Biggest fields in Poker
Many thousands of people turn up to play in the World Series each year, with many of the events attracting large fields especially the lower buy in events. However the $10,000 buy in main event still attracts the most entries peaking at 8,773 players in 2006 all paying $10,000 to enter generating a prize pool of $82.5million+ and a first prize of $12million for eventual winner Jamie Gold.
The attendance at the WSOP is boosted by the thousands of players who qualify via winning satellite tournaments run on online poker sites. This allows players who do not usually play in high buy in events to win their seat in the tournament for as little as a few dollars. In fact this is credited for being a major part of the ‘poker boom’ that took place after millions of Television viewers saw Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event and $2.5million in 2003 after winning his seat in a $30 online satellite.
The World Series of Poker Triple Crown
The triple crown consists of the three highest ranking achievements at each years WSOP. The three titles that every poker player wants to win include of course the Main Event, the $50,000 HORSE Poker Players Championship and the Player of the Year Award.
The Main event is the biggest title in poker and to beat a field of many thousands and bringing your A game for over a week is an amazing achievement. The $50k HORSE Poker Players Championship is considered the most skilful title you can win in poker, with a mixture of poker games being rotated during the tournament, and the $50k buy in and prestige of the tournament attracting a field of world class player that the winner has to beat.
The Player of the Year Award is a points based system that totals up a players performance throughout all the 60+ events of the World Series. This shows the best all round performer at the series and rewards them with the Player of the Year title.
| WSOP Titles | WPT Titles | EPT Titles | Poker Earnings | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Erik Seidel | 8 | 1 | 0 | $21,499,344 |
| 2 | Phil Ivey | 9 | 1 | 0 | $17,649,220 |
| 3 | John Juanda | 5 | 0 | 0 | $15,113,768 |
| 4 | Allen Cunningham | 5 | 0 | 0 | $12,031,743 |
| 5 | Carlos Mortensen | 2 | 3 | 0 | $11,598,083 |
| 6 | Gus Hansen | 1 | 4 | 0 | $11,240,678 |
| 7 | JC Tran | 2 | 1 | 0 | $10,416,658 |
| 8 | Erick Lindgren | 2 | 2 | 0 | $9,881,849 |
| 9 | Mike Matusow | 4 | 0 | 0 | $8,974,373 |
| 10 | Chris Ferguson | 5 | 0 | 0 | $8,281,926 |
| 11 | Vanessa Selbst | 2 | 0 | 0 | $8,018,466 |
| 12 | Paul Wasicka | 0 | 0 | 0 | $7,896,100 |
| 13 | Huck Seed | 5 | 0 | 0 | $7,582,816 |
| 14 | David Benyamine | 1 | 1 | 0 | $7,047,146 |
| 15 | Howard Lederer | 2 | 2 | 0 | $6,571,538 |
| 16 | Gavin Smith | 1 | 1 | 0 | $5,959,186 |
| 17 | Kathy Liebert | 0 | 0 | 0 | $5,929,521 |
| 18 | Andy Bloch | 1 | 0 | 0 | $5,415,383 |
| 19 | John Cernuto | 3 | 0 | 0 | $5,352,640 |
| 20 | Roland de Wolfe | 1 | 1 | 1 | $5,330,556 |
| 21 | Robert Mizrachi | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,498,967 |
| 22 | Andy Black | 0 | 0 | 0 | $4,432,368 |
| 23 | Annie Duke | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,270,549 |
| 24 | Lee Watkinson | 1 | 0 | 0 | $4,146,149 |
| 25 | Jeff Madsen | 3 | 0 | 0 | $4,054,686 |
| 26 | Annette Obrestad | 1 | 0 | 0 | $3,910,678 |
| 27 | Vanessa Rousso | 0 | 0 | 1 | $3,513,841 |
| 28 | Max Pescatori | 2 | 0 | 0 | $3,322,683 |
| 29 | Phil Gordon | 0 | 1 | 0 | $2,786,896 |
| 30 | Jennifer Harman | 2 | 0 | 0 | $2,697,533 |
| 31 | Joanne Liu | 0 | 0 | 0 | $2,678,069 |
| 32 | Greg Mueller | 2 | 0 | 0 | $2,621,740 |
| 33 | Liv Boeree | 0 | 0 | 1 | $2,281,097 |
| 34 | Tom Dwan | 0 | 0 | 0 | $2,213,937 |
| 35 | Sandra Naujoks | 0 | 0 | 1 | $1,789,239 |
| 36 | Victoria Coren | 0 | 0 | 1 | $1,745,178 |
| 37 | Clonie Gowen | 0 | 1 | 0 | $1,639,064 |
| 38 | Viktor Blom | 0 | 0 | 0 | $1,527,299 |
| 39 | Eddy Scharf | 2 | 0 | 0 | $1,327,119 |
| 40 | Erica Schoenberg | 0 | 0 | 0 | $848,458 |
| 41 | Aaron Bartley | 0 | 0 | 0 | $215,777 |
The Lucrative Game of Poker
There is a lot of money to be made in the poker world. You can see that just from our rankings above, with players who have tournament poker earnings of 10 or 20 million dollars. It is possible to rack up a sizeable personal fortune if you have the skills to regularly win poker events, or even if you have a good run at one large poker event and walk away with a monstrous and sometimes outrageous prize.
This is very different to the old days of poker, where winners of large tournaments would still walk away with very good prizes, but would be more like a few hundred thousand dollars rather than the many millions of today’s game.
This is largely due to the influx of poker players over the past decade, with the transition of the sport to a game played behind closed doors, into a main stream sport that is televised and shown all over the world. Some of the large events in the poker calendar attract fields of thousands of players, and the more players, the bigger the prize pool.
The World Series of Poker Main Event
The World Series of Poker main event still offers one of the biggest prizes in poker. This is due to the massive field generated by the tournament. The field, which ranges from 6,000 to 9,000 each year has to be split over a number of starting days, as the full field cannot fit into the massive WSOP tournament space at the Rio, in Las Vegas.
The huge fields are partly driven by the prestige of the being the headline poker event of the year, but also by the quantity of people who qualify for the event via smaller buy in online satellite tournaments run by online poker sites.
Of course these huge fields are all paying $10,000 to enter the tournament which generates a outrageous prize pool. The biggest was in 2006 with a prize pool of $82.5million and a first prize of $12million.
The WSOP One Drop – Biggest Prize in Poker
In 2012, the World Series of Poker introduce a new event. It was a high rollers $1million buy in tournament which was 4 times the next biggest buy in tournament. The event attracted the biggest professional poker players in the sport together with other wealthy people including at least 2 billionaires.
There were 48 entrants, and eventual winner Antonio Esfandiari took home a 1st place prize of $18.3million, with even 2nd placed Sam Trickett taking home a sizeable $10million.
The event generated a massive amount of Buzz in the poker world and in the main stream press, culminating in the biggest spectacle the poker world has ever seen, with a broadcast on ESPN, showgirls and piles and piles of cash.
Online Poker – The Internet Poker Millionaire
Online Poker allows anybody to sit at their computer, or on their tablet on the sofa and play online poker. The rise in popularity of online poker has lead to regular high payout tournaments where players can enter for quite a modest fee and win prizes of hundreds of thousands, or even millions.
World Series Of Poker 2021
Regular tournaments take place at the big online poker sites, such as the Pokerstars Sunday Million which takes place every Sunday night, with a guaranteed prize pool of $1million for a relatively small buy in of $215. This guarantee is usually smashed and a much larger prize pool results. Many similar weekly tournaments take place but this is the largest.
World Series Of Poker Winners Earnings Losers
There are also Online Tournament Series which regularly occur and mirror the festival feel of the World Series of Poker by running a series of events, of varying buy in amounts and various formats of poker. The biggest two of these are the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) run by Pokerstars which in 2013 had a guaranteed prize pool of $40million over 66 events and the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) run by Full Tilt Poker.