Poker Leaderboard: The Best Businessmen Poker Players

Despite the fact that all of the players included on this leaderboard have cashed for multiple millions of dollars in poker tournaments, they are all widely considered non-professional players due to their success in other arenas.

The gold standard for businessmen poker players is Cary Katz, the founder of the College Loan Corporation. Katz has cashed for more than $28.4 million in poker tournaments since his first recorded score back in 2004. He has six seven-figure scores under his belt among a total of 206 in-the-money finishes, with 23 titles won along the way. Katz is currently in 15th place on poker’s all-time money list, even though the game is not his main profession.

Of all the players found in the top ten on this leaderboard, Aaron Zang holds the record for the single largest tournament score. Zang took home an astounding $16,810,979 USD as the champion of the highest buy-in poker tournament ever held, the £1,050,00 buy-in Triton Million charity invitational no-limit hold’em event that took place in London in 2019. Zang was one of 27 recreational players invited to the tournament, and he defeated poker’s all-time money leader Bryn Kenney heads-up for the title. The two struck a deal following the elimination of Dan Smith in third place that saw Kenney walk away with the larger payday in the end ($20,606,421 USD).

Elton Tsang, Rick Salomon, and Anatoly Gurtovoy’s spots on this leaderboard are also largely due to their successes in seven-figure buy-in tournaments. Bill Perkins, the subject of this issue’s cover story, fell just short of making the top ten. His $5,449,661 in recorded tournament scores puts him in 11th place in the standings.