Top 5 Richest Poker Players in the World
While the majority of people tend to believe that poker is just a source of entertainment that helps people blow off some steam, in reality, professional poker players at the top of their game can earn as much as millions of dollars. This can be done in a lot of different ways like winning the World Series of Poker or going all-in online. And there are people who were capable of doing that way better than others, and those are the people that are among the richest poker players in the world. Here are the top 5 wealthiest people who earned all of their fortunes just by playing cards.
Sam Farha
The poker player from Beirut who now resides in Houston, Texas is one of the richest and most famous poker players in the world because, during his career, he has managed to accumulate over $100 million. Regardless most people would probably recognize him as the man who lost to Chris Moneymaker in the 2003 World Series of Poker. What most people don’t know is that in a rematch between Farha and Moneymaker a few months later, organized by PokerStars, Farha won. They played against each other again in a special “grudge match” during the 2011 World Series of Poker, which was won by Moneymaker in a best-of-three format.
Farha has won over $2.5 million at poker tournaments but clearly leveraged his personality and demeanor into much more than that. Currently, he is Harrah’s Las Vegas casino spokesperson, appeared on four seasons of High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network, and appeared in the movie Lucky You as himself.
The interesting this is that most of Farha’s WSOP bracelets have come from Omaha events. He even wrote a strategy guide for playing Omaha poker and is working on another book as well. Sometimes called Mister Cool, he’s proof that poker can turn you into a cool millionaire, even if you lose to an online poker phenom.
Phil Ivey
Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables, now worth no less than $100 million. Ivey was at one time regarded by numerous poker observers and contemporaries as the best all-around player in the world.
The 10-time-winner of the World Series of Poker, who has surpassed his $19,500,000 won in live tournaments didn’t get into gambling by starting out with poker, like most of the people on this list. In fact, he simply started to play online blackjack games on Playamo which is what got him more into competitive games like poker. And obviously he made the right choice by pursuing a professional career in this game.
He later went on to use that fame in his association with Tiltware, the parent company of Full Tilt Poker. According to divorce records, he was earning $920,000 per month for his passive interest in the company. One of the top names in poker, both online and in-person, Ivey is an icon of the professional poker world. And in 2017, he was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Chris Ferguson
Ferguson, an American professional poker player who has won 6 World Series of Poker events, including the 2000 WSOP Main Event and the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship is quite a controversial figure in the world of poker, in large part because of his role and silence in the Black Friday indictments that rocked the online poker world in 2001. E did come out with an apology later on but it didn’t really make the consequences of his mistake go away.
Ferguson has won over $6.5 million in poker tournaments and his net worth is undoubtedly one of the highest among all poker players at over $80 million.
Doyle Brunson
This is definitely one of the most famous names in the world of poker as Brunson is a renowned poker legend who got into the Poker Hall of Fame back in 1988. The 87-year-old professional was the first player to win $1 million in poker tournaments. He has also won ten WSOP bracelets throughout his career and is one of only four players to have won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker multiple times, which he did in 1976 and 1977.
And While his poker tournament winnings are lower than many others on the list, that’s in large part because the prize pools were much smaller when he was winning multiple World Series of Poker championships. The retired poker player, who stepped back from the main stage in 2018 after 50 years as a card shark, has received a standing ovation at his final World Series of Poker table and got poker hands named after him.
Daniel Negreanu
This poker player, who is worth $50 million has earned the nickname Kid Poker due to the fact that he has shown impressive poker skills from a very young age. The 46-year-old Canadian professional has won over $17 million in poker tournaments and has earned multiple World Series of Poker events. He has already been named player of the year by a variety of organizations and publications. He’s appeared on poker TV shows and even blockbusters like X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
On July 29, 2024, after a years-long feud with fellow poker pro Doug Polk, Negreanu publicly accepted a challenge to a high stakes grudge match. The terms are to play between 10,000 and 25,000 hands of No-Limit Texas Hold’em at $200/$400 stakes.
