Daniel Negreanu is a person whom every self-respecting poker fan recognizes as the leader in the all-time money list with live tournament earnings of more than $30 million, a six-time WSOP gold bracelet winner, a Team PokerStars Pro, and one of the world’s best known poker ambassadors. All Time Money List; 2020 Money List; Global Poker Index Ranking; GPI Player of the Year; 2019 Flaghunter Ranking; Short Deck Poker All Time Money List; All Rankings; Poker Database. PokerDB; Calendar & Events; Festivals & Results; Poker Players; Tours & Circuits; Poker Venues; News & More. News; Poker Beginners Guide; Frequently Asked.

For the last eight years, the largest tournament in the world has been the World Series of Poker Main Event. With the exception of 1992, the US$10,000 buy-in tournament increased in prize pool year-over-year from its start in 1970 until 2007 (the latter a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which reduced the number of players winning their seats via online play).

The first tournament to reach a million dollar prize pool was the 1983 WSOP Main Event. The WSOP Main Event of 2004 had the first prize pool of above $10,000,000.

The largest non Hold'em Tournament has been the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE with a prize pool of $7,104,000 and the first prize of $1,989,120 going to Scotty Nguyen.^[1]

Below are the 30 largest poker tournaments with respect to the prize pool in United States dollars and not number of entrants. This list includes live and online poker.

Currently, 14 of the 15 largest prize pools in history have been WSOP Main Events. The second largest prize pool outside of the Main Event is the 2012 WSOP event known as The Big One for One Drop, held from July 1–3. It featured a buy-in of US$1 million, the largest in poker history. Of the buy-in, $111,111 was a charitable donation to the One Drop Foundation, and the WSOP took no rake. All 48 seats available for that event were filled, resulting in a prize pool of $42,666,672, with over 5 million dollars donated.^[2] The second largest pool for any event outside of the WSOP was the 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge, with a HK$2 million (US$260,000) buy-in plus a rebuy option. The event drew a field of 73, of which 21 made a rebuy, resulting in a prize pool of HK$182,360,000 (slightly over US$23.5 million).^[3]

All of the 30 richest tournaments to date were played in No Limit Hold'em.

Poker All Time Money Winners

Notes[edit]

1. ^Hendon Mob
2. ^Dalla, Nolan (June 30, 2012). 'The Biggest One—World's Most Spectacular Poker Extravaganza Starts Sunday'. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
3. ^Peters, Donnie (August 31, 2012). 'Stanley Choi Wins Macau High Stakes Challenge for US$6,465,746'. PokerNews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
4. ^'2006 WSOP Main Event payouts'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
5. ^Hendon Mob
6. ^https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=541550
7. ^[1]
8. ^wsop.com
9. ^http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/payouts.asp?grid=1352&tid=15673
10. ^ ^abhttps://triton-series.com/triton-super-high-roller-series-london-2019/
11. ^'PIUS HEINZ WINS 2011 WSOP MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONSHIP'. WSOP. 8 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
12. ^Hendon Mob
13. ^'Level 4 concludes: officially the largest main event in the last five years'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
14. ^Poker News Daily
15. ^pokernews.com
16. ^'2009 WSOP main event prize pool'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
17. ^'Event #68: No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT'. 2015 World Series op Poker Chip Counts. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
18. ^Hendon Mob
19. ^'2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker, Event #62: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 20, 2013. Click on the 'Prizepool' tab for the first prize.
20. ^Hendon Mob
21. ^Dalla, Nolan (July 3, 2012). 'Antonio Esfandiari Pulls Off Amazing Trick by Winning One Drop'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
22. ^Hendon Mob
23. ^[2]
24. ^[3]
25. ^[4]
26. ^Hendon Mob
27. ^Hendon Mob
28. ^Hendon Mob
29. ^Hendon Mob
30. ^Hendon Mob
31. ^[5]
32. ^Hendon Mob
33. ^Hendon Mob
34. ^pokerstarsblog.com

The tournament poker landscape has seen a major shift in recent years, with the rise and proliferation of the super high roller circuit completely changing the way live tournament performance is evaluated. With multiple tournament buy-ins of $25,000 or higher each and every month, the top players in the game have never had more access to small-field events that feature massive paydays up for grabs.

The growth of the super high roller circuit has made a big impact on poker’s all-time money list. With the game’s top players able to accumulate seven-figure scores at a previously unthinkable rate, the top 20 on the live tournament earnings list has been almost entirely overhauled in recent years.

At the start of 2013, when high roller events were just beginning to become more common, the top 20 on the all-time money list looked as follows:

The list was topped by Antonio Esfandiari, who surged to the number one spot after winning the first-ever $1 million buy-in poker tournament in 2012, while the runner-up in that event Sam Trickett occupied the second-place spot. Much of the rest of the list is dominated by the biggest stars of the early 2000’s poker boom, including Phil Ivey,Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda, Michael Mizrachi, and Scotty Nguyen. The list was also overrun with modern-era World Series of Poker main event winners, including Jamie Gold, Joe Hachem, Jonathan Duhamel, Carlos Mortensen, and Greg Merson.

Only one player had surpassed the $20 million mark in earnings by the start of 2013, and three players inside the top 20 had accumulated less than $10 million total.

As of today, a player with exactly $10 million in live tournament earnings would only sit in 72nd place on the list! Four players have cashed for more than $10 million so far this year alone, and only one player inside the top 20 has less than $20 million in career earnings, with Isaac Haxton sitting just outside that mark with $19,666,117.

Here’s a look at the current all-time money list:

Only seven players from the 2013 list are still among the top 20, in Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Phil Hellmuth, and Sam Trickett. All of these players remain inside the top 20 as a result of having added several million in earnings since 2013. The leading amount of money won at the start of 2013 ($23,496,079) would only be good for 13th place today.

Fedor Holz is one of many young high roller regulars inside the current top 20 who were essentially nowhere near the top of the list at the start of 2013. In fact, Holz had only made one live tournament cash by that time, for $19,288. He now sits in fourth place with $32,992,603.

With $43,449,427 in lifetime live earnings, Justin Bonomo is the current leader on the all-time money list. Bonomo is having an incredible 2018, having won 10 titles and cashed for more than $25.2 million so far this year. That is the most money won by any player in a calendar year, eclipsing the $22 million that Dan Colman won in 2014.

With it now being possible for multiple players to cash for eight figures in a single year, it seems likely that the of the all-time money list will see plenty of fluctuation moving forward. Phil Hellmuth lamented how the super high rollers have changed the top of the leaderboard during a sideline interview at the 2018 Super High Roller Bowl, which Justin Bonomo went on to win for $5 million. That event was the one that saw Bonomo take the top spot on the money list, and he had a response to Hellmuth’s comments after emerging victorious.

“The all-time money list is definitely not a clear ranking of the best player in the world right now, but it still means a lot,” said Bonomo. “Some guys say, ‘Oh, that’s just all about who plays the most high rollers.’ Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, Phil Hellmuth, but the people playing these high rollers are the best players in the world, and that’s why we are at the top of the list. Sure, somebody who plays more of these events will have an advantage [at accruing earnings], but it really does entail competing against the best players in the world nearly every single day, and I am proud of how I’ve done.”

While super high rollers might have once seemed like an unsustainable trend, with more than five years of growth it seems increasingly likely that these events will continue to take place for years to come.

Poker All-time Money Winners