Justin Bonomo has just been crowned as the biggest winning poker player ever. He’s won more money playing poker tournaments than anyone else in the world and he’s only 32 years old. The poker pro earned $10 million when he won the “Big One for One Drop” $1 million buy-ins at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. This win took his lifetime earnings up to a massive $43 million putting him ahead of Daniel Negreanu.
The total win doesn’t accurately show the actual amount of money Bonomo took home, but it is an indicator as to how well he has played and how fortunate he has been to take the top spot. His earlier success in 2018 was what allowed him to take a bigger piece of the prize pool and when asked about it, he said, “This was a million-dollar buy-in, so I was not able to put up anywhere close to even half the money myself. It honestly made this even more special; I get to share this win with literally hundreds of people, because I sold action on the internet, as well. Also, some of my closest friends in the world helped me prepare for this tournament, and I’m so happy to give back to them.”
The top five winners in the 2018 WSOP $1 Million Big One For One Drop was, Justin Bonomo who scooped the big prize of $10 million, Fedor Holz who walked away with $6 million, Dan Smith $4 million, Rick Salomon $2.84 million, and Byron Kaverman with $2 million.
So far, Bonomo has earned $25 million in winnings in 2018 and the year isn’t over yet. In Macau, he won $4.8 million at one of the high-roller tournaments. Another $5 million was added in May when he won another high-roller event in Las Vegas. The $10 million win in July was his sixteenth six-figure win of 2018, and he’s not done yet.
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The $10 million win for Bonomo makes him the biggest earner in poker but even the losers add to their bank balance. Fedor Holz walked away with $6 million from the tournament in July putting him in fourth place in the biggest earners list. What’s more, Holz is only 24 years old.
It should be noted, that the amounts are only the poker winnings and they don’t include the buy-in costs for the tournaments. The figures don’t include the tournaments that where players don’t make any money either. Even taking this into consideration, Bonomo’s latest victory is huge and we’re sure there’s a lot more to come for poker players in the final few months of 2018 too.
Bonomo may be at the top of the list at the moment but what about the rest of the professional poker players? How do they stand in the rankings? In recent years, high roller and super high roller events have been played and this has driven the prize pools up so much. Below you will find our list of the next five biggest poker winners ever.
Further into the top ten you’ll find names that are probably very familiar. As a WSOP regular, Phil Ivey has won 10 bracelets to date. Also on the list is Phil Hellmuth who holds the record number of World Series of Poker wins have scooped up 14 bracelets to date. We don’t see these players leaving the top ten any time soon and if anything, we expect that they will both continue to rise in the rankings.
It’s not just men who play in poker tournaments. There are female professionals too. There are quite a number of women poker players who have earnings that exceed $1 million.
In the number one position is Vanessa Selbst. She has accumulated over $11.84 million in earnings in just over ten years. In second place is Kathy Liebert, another USA poker player, that has earned over $6.09 million during her time as a professional. Both of these players are the only females in the history of poker to earn over $6 million.
Other women poker players on the list include Jennifer Harman with over $2.7 million in winnings. There’s also Annette Obrestad who won the inaugural WSOP-E Main Event Championship . This Norwegian player’s earnings put her in fourth place at $3.9 million, just under Annie Duke who has $4.2 million.