Consistently gambling can lead to a life of poverty, desperation, and debt…well unless you’re these guys in which case it’s great! The people on this list are all masters of poker and continue to demonstrate that the game is based more on skill than luck. Constantly considering their odds as well as being able to read their opponents is what has gotten these players a spot on this list, and being able to do that consistently is how they have accumulated such significant wealth.
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10. Jamie Gold Net Worth: 13 million
Jamie Gold has a lot on his plate (metaphorically at least, I don’t know how much the guy eats) between being a professional poker player, producer and talent agent. He has had some major clients such as Jimmy Fallon and Lucy Liu, but still one of his main sources of revenue is poker. He started playing professionally in 2005, and just a year later he went on to win the 2006 World Series of Poker. He pioneered the strategy of pressuring his opponents to bet heavily, either calling them on their bluffs are pushing them all in only to take the pot. While some took issue with his playing style, that didn’t stop him from walking away with 12 million in winnings.
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9. Joe Hachem Net Worth: 16 million
Joe Hachem is and Australian poker player who has won both the 2005 World Series of Poker as well as the 2006 World Poker Tour making him one of only five poker players in the world to ever have done so. He grossed around 10 million from both events, and the other smaller events he has won along the way are what explains how he has amassed such a significant net worth. He is very restrained in his playing style and typically doesn’t bluff without some kind of out ready.
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8. Antonio Esfandiari Net Worth (tie): 20 million
A man who has worked with cards his whole life, Antonio Esfandiari started as a professional magician before eventually making the switch to poker. From there he went on to win two world poker tours as well as three world series of poker. Not only this, but in 2012 Esfandiari participated in a $1,000,000 buy-in tournament benefitting the One Drop Foundation, and by winning he ended up making $18 million in profits. This is considered to be the largest single payout in poker history and can explain how Esfandiari obtained a spot on this list.
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7. Phil Hellmuth Net Worth (tie): 20 million
Phil Hellmuth has one of the most impressive professional records out there, having won an astounding fifteen World Series of Poker bracelets over his career. He started fairly young and dropped out during his third year in college in order to pursue his poker career. He actively is involved in the poker world, and when not competing in high stakes tournaments he also is a regular on the show Poker After Dark as well.
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6. Chris Ferguson Net Worth: 25 million
Chris Ferguson has won six World Series of Pokers events over the course of his professional career with an estimated payout of around $2 million. While this is very impressive in itself, much of Ferguson’s revenue is thought to come from the website he is a director of called Full Tilt Poker. In September 2011 a civil complaint was made against Ferguson complaining that the site was really a Ponzi scheme which had paid out upwards of $444 million dollars of customer money to the site’s owners. The case was eventually dismissed with regulations being placed on the site, but odds are Ferguson still made away with some large profits.
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5. Daniel Colman Net Worth: 28 million
Still fairly young as far as professional poker players go, Daniel Colman has been making waves in the poker community by winning some of the largest pots ever in poker tournament history. The most notable of these took place in 2014 when he competed in a one million dollar buy-in competition and came out winning it with a pot of more than fifteen million. He has won several other high stakes poker tournaments as well, taking home seven plus figures at each one, and is also a prominent online poker player as well which explains how he has been able to accumulate so much wealth so quickly.
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4. Erik Seidel Net Worth: 40 million
Erik Seidel has always been interested in high-risk exchanges it seems, playing professional backgammon in his youth, he eventually became a trader in the stock market before deciding to make a living as a playing poker. From that point he went on to win eight World Series of Poker bracelets as well as a World Poker Tour title and even was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010. He also set a record by being the only poker to earn over 5 million in a year more than once, and as of the end of 2017 is said to have done it an incredible four times.
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3. Daniel Negreanu Net Worth: 50 million
Getting his start early, Canadian born Daniel Negreanu had the ambition to become a poker player from a young age, and by sixteen years old had dropped out of high school to spend his time betting. He eventually made the move to Las Vegas and has since won an incredible six World Series of Poker, as well as two World Poker Tour championship titles. He also boasts the title of being the only poker player to have been voted player of the year more than once, as well as being voted the best poker player of the decade in 2014. Needless to say, the man is very good at poker, and his current net worth is certainly a reflection of that.
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2. Phil Ivey Net Worth: 100 million
Considered to be one of the best all-around poker players ever, Phil Ivey or “the Tiger Woods of poker” has been able to accumulate huge amounts of wealth through tournaments as well as private investments. He has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets over the course of his career as well as winning a World Poker Tour title as well. While all these wins have done much to explain the vast amounts of wealth he has accumulated, it is also Ivey’s involvement with the site Full Tilt Poker that contributed to his earnings. Ivey was apparently involved with the design of the site but eventually sued them due to a contract breach. The initial sum he requested in reparations was 150 million dollars, but eventually, he settled for somewhere around 20 million.
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1. Dan Bilzerian Net Worth: 150 million
It’s hard to be a person who uses the internet today without knowing who Dan Bilzerian is. He is a fairly well-known poker player, although it’s tough to confirm just how much he has made from the game due to most of his earnings not being obtained in a professional setting. Despite that he still has amassed a huge fortune, taking in revenue from a variety of other sources. The first may be his father who has claimed to have made hundreds of millions throughout his business career and may have passed some of that on to Dan. The other is that he is a very influential social media personality, and has built something of an empire that he undoubtedly uses for ad revenue. It is all these things as well as Bilzerian’s poker career that puts him on the top of this list.
