The World Series of Poker has been the leading poker circuit for decades now and over the years many poker players have won millions in WSOP tournaments. Back when the WSOP started the prize pools and playing field were much smaller and this makes the results somewhat interesting. Some of the top earners in the WSOP aren’t really even close to being the best players in the world, but since the prize pools the past seven years have been huge compared to the rest of the years the results are swayed.
Jamie Gold – $12,064,976
Jamie Gold only has one WSOP bracelet in his career which came in the 2006 Main Event. It was a massive prize pool and was big enough to put Jamie in first place for the top earners in the history of the World Series of Poker. Jamie is also the only player who has broken the $10 million mark in earnings on the WSOP circuit.
Peter Eastgate – 9,119,517
Peter Eastgate of PokerStars is one of the youngest professional poker players right now and has years of playing poker in front of him. Peter won the most recent WSOP Main Event which was in 2008 and the first place finish was enough to put him second on the list of top earners. If Peter continues playing like he did in the 2008 Main Event he’ll easily become the highest earner on the WSOP circuit.
Jerry Yang – $8,250,000
Jerry Yang of Absolute Poker Cheats isn’t the most well known poker player, but he won the 2007 WSOP Main Event and is ranked third on the all-time earners list for the WSOP. The Main Event bracelet which Jerry won has been the only WSOP bracelet which he has won in his career thus far. I’m sure we’ll see more of Yang in the future and he could also have a shot at becoming the all-time top earner with one more major win.
Joe Hachem – $7,940,210
Joe Hachem is one of the more popular and recognized poker players around the world due in large part to his 2005 Main Event WSOP bracelet as well as his many TV appearances on poker television shows. Joe only has the one WSOP bracelet thus far, but he is definitely a good enough poker player to add to that at anytime.
Allen Cunningham – $6,673,828
Allen Cunningham of Full Tilt Poker has won five WSOP bracelets in his career and finished in the money a lot more times as well. He is easily one of the best poker players of all-time and sits in fifth of the all-time earners list in the WSOP.
As you can see out of the top five WSOP earners of all-time the top four have only won one WSOP bracelet each. The reason the top four are the top four is simply because they won the WSOP Main Event recently when the prize pools have skyrocketed.
Phil Hellmuth who is the most successful online poker player of all-time with eleven WSOP bracelets sits seventh on the all-time earners list. Most people would logically think he would be on top of the list, but since his wins came years ago the prize pools were much smaller.