Tournament Leaderboard: Bellagio Tournament Earnings

Rank Player Bellagio Earnings
1 Tom Marchese $6.06 million
2 Dan Smith $5.67 million
3 Carlos Mortensen $5.20 million
4 Daniel Negreanu $5.14 million
5 Andrew Lichtenberger $4.04 million
6 Alex Foxen $4.03 million
7 Jake Schindler $3.97 million
8 Jason Koon $3.93 million
9 Joe Bartholdi $3.84 million
10 Erik Seidel $3.57 million

More than $596 million has been paid out at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino since it first opened in 1998, which is the second most tournament prize money of any venue in the world. It trails only the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, which played host to the World Series of Poker from 2005 to 2021.

The casino has been a major partner of the World Poker Tour since it began in 2002. The Bellagio hosted as many as four WPT stops per year during the poker boom era, including the $25,000 buy-in season-ending championship event.

The WPT returned to Bellagio this October for the latest running of the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, with the main event title going to Chad Eveslage (read more about his win on pg. 24). Even with a seven-figure payday, Eveslage has a long way to go to make it to the top 10 on the venue’s all-time earnings leaderboard.

Sitting atop the list is Tom Marchese with more than $6 million in earnings. Four of his seven career seven-figure scores have come at Bellagio, including his two largest cashes: a $1,465,451 payday for finishing third in a $100,000 high roller in 2014 and $1,308,405 for winning another six-figure buy-in event at the Five Star series in 2012.

Second-ranked Dan Smith also has multiple seven-figure cashes at Bellagio. Smith took down the 2013 WPT Five Diamond main event for $1,161,135, and then won a pair of $100,000 buy-in events in 2014 and 2017 for $2,044,766 and $1,404,000, respectively. All told, nearly $5.7 of his $39.7 million in career earnings have been secured at the central-strip mainstay.

Rounding out the top three is 2001 WSOP main event winner Carlos Mortensen. The Spanish poker pro more than doubled his earnings from the world championship when he won the prestigious 2007 WPT Championship, beating out a field of 639 entries in the $25,000 buy-in event to earn a staggering $3,970,415 payday. That victory accounted for the majority of his $5.2 million in total cashes at Bellagio.

The rest of the top 10 is littered with elite performers, including Daniel Negreanu, who won one of his two WPT titles at Bellagio, and Andrew Lichtenberger, who pocketed more than $2.1 million for winning a WPT Alpha8 event there in 2014. ♠