Poker Leaderboard: Under 40 Years Old, Over $30 Million In Earnings

There are only 13 players to ever exceed $30 million in recorded career tournament earnings. Incredibly, nine of those 13 players are under the age of 40, with the average age being around 32 and a half years old. The four players who are past the 40-year age limit for this are 46-year-old Daniel Negreanu ($41.1 million in earnings), 61-year-old Erik Seidel ($37.9 million in earnings), 44-year-old Phil Ivey ($30.8 million in earnings) and 51-year-old Cary Katz ($30.6 million in earnings).

The highest-earning tournament poker player in the world is 34-year-old Bryn Kenney with $56.6 million in career cashes. Kenney wrote his name in the history books in August of 2019, securing the largest-ever payday in the history of the game when he struck a heads-up deal in the record-setting £1,050,000 (equivalent to more than $1.3 million USD at the time) buy-in. Kenney earned $20,606,421 as the result of the deal he cut with Aaron Zang, who was able to overcome Kenney’s chip lead to ultimately secure the title. Kenney has earned seven other seven-figure cashes in his career, which are included as part of his incredible 61 tournament scores of six-figures or more. In fact, his lone WSOP bracelet win in the 2014 $1,500 10-game mix event for $153,220 just barely squeaked into his top 50 largest scores.

Justin Bonomo joins Kenney as the only players so far to exceed the $50 million in earnings mark. The 35-year-old American held the lead on the all-time money list for just over a year, having moved into the top spot by winning the 2018 WSOP Big One For One Drop $1 million buy-in for $10 million. The three-time bracelet winner had a historic year in 2018, winning 10 titles and cashing for just shy of $25.3 million over a 12-month span to help secure his place at the top of the leaderboard before Kenney surged ahead.

The youngest player among this group is Germany’s Fedor Holz. The 27-year-old has already cashed for more than $34.2 million during his tournament career. His largest score came when he finished runner up to Bonomo in the 2018 Big One For One Drop for $6 million. Holz had won the $111,111 buy-in WSOP High Roller for One Drop in 2016 to earn nearly $5 million for his second-largest score. His second bracelet victory came in the 2020 WSOP Online $25,000 buy-in heads-up no-limit hold’em event. Holz earned $1,070,250 as the champion of that event, securing the eighth seven-figure score of his career, with five being for $2 million or more.