Chris Moneymaker’s Personal Poker Boom

A new poker tour, a new card room, taking an active role in an online poker site, being a family man, and there’s even a coffee brand in the works. Oh, and he also works in some time at the poker table.

Chris Moneymaker is a busy man these days. And while most poker fans have his name etched in their memories for winning the 2003 World Series of Poker main event and subsequently helping to kick off the poker boom, Moneymaker has spent the last couple of years adding significantly to a résumé that already had him in the Poker Hall of Fame.

At age 48, Moneymaker finds himself playing the best poker of his career. In fact, his last year on the felt has been more lucrative than any time since turning an $86 online poker satellite win into an entry into the WSOP and a score of $2.5 million.

In August of last year, Moneymaker ventured to London for the Triton high roller series, surprising competitors not only with his presence, but his play in a $250,000 buy-in event, grabbing fifth for $2 million.

The truth is that Moneymaker didn’t even want to play Triton events, but decided to make the trip after some prodding from his sponsor, ACR Poker. As it turns out, it was a push in the right direction. (He has been with the site since 2020 after ending a 17-year deal with PokerStars.)

Not only did Moneymaker final table the online Venom event, outlasting more than 5,000 entries for a $382,007 payday, but then in May, ACR sent him back to Triton, where this time he found the winner’s circle.

While in Montenegro, he topped a field of 107 entries, many of the best in the world, in the $25,000 GG Million$ event for $903,000. If that weren’t enough, he followed that up with a third-place finish in a $40,000 Mystery Bounty event for another $311,000.

“I was kicking and screaming going to both of them,” he admitted.

Despite his reluctance, Moneymaker was pleased to see some big results. Even after a long career at the table, the wins add even more to the Poker Hall of Famer’s legacy.

“Obviously, it feels really good to win anything, but winning at that level is really incredible,” he said. “Everybody knows every one of those players and how good they are, so having success in that realm is really good. I went above expectation, but it still feels nice. The London trip and the Montenegro trip, I had a magical run there. It feels amazing.”

Overall, the poker business has been good for Moneymaker. His namesake tour, which launched in the summer 2023, continues adding stops and new partner casinos, and is now expanding internationally.

Although he scoffs at having to endure more international travel for high rollers, his deal with ACR Poker has been a boon, giving Moneymaker a more active role in helping expand the brand.

And after having to close down his first attempt at a card room in Paducah, Kentucky, last year due to legal issues, Moneymaker Social club recently opened in Louisville on more solid footing.

The poker legend recently spoke with Card Player about his life in the game, his expanding business, the sponsorship front, earning trophies, and more.

Table Talk

Moneymaker has no interest in being at the top of the all-time money list, and running simulators and being part of a poker study session is not something he wants on his agenda. Poker has always been an entertaining vocation that happens to also provide him with a nice living. Considering that mindset, it’s no wonder that he wasn’t too interested in heading around the globe to play cards at some of the highest stakes.

“I generally play poker for fun,” he said. “I like playing against people that are enjoying themselves, and I like to play people I know I can beat. I’ve made a living playing people that are worse than me. They have a good time and I take their money. That’s been a good relationship. You start getting into Tritons and these brilliant sickos well, it’s really hard. Those guys are good. They don’t really give anything away. It’s really hard to say I’m going to fly halfway across the world to go play in a tournament where my expectation of winning is significantly less than if I went five hours away from the house.”

As a Triton sponsor, ACR Poker usually sends a couple team pros to play in tour events. When Moneymaker signed with the company, he hoped to reduce some time on airplanes.

“When I signed my deal with them, part of the thing I wanted to do is slow down on my travel,” he recalled. “I was going to do my own poker tour, my social rooms, and do things that are a little bit more local and I was able to stay at home with the family. And now I’m looking at going to Uruguay and other places. It’s just a little bit of a change from what I had originally intended, but when you pick up some wins it makes it worthwhile.”

Despite those big scores, Moneymaker says he has no interest spending hours a day fine-tuning his game. As a father and businessman, he’s too busy and also just doesn’t want to get that deep into the weeds, which he feels might take away the fun of the game. He has found himself working on some bigger-picture plays in recent months, but just doesn’t focus on spending hours breaking down hands.

“I don’t work (on poker skills) as much as everybody thinks I do,” he admitted. “Obviously I’ve been working on it, but I don’t study GTO and I don’t study solvers. I play online. If I get stuck in a big hand, I’ll review that hand and see what I could have done differently. I’m not out here running sims. I pretty much play based on situations. I know the ranges you’re supposed to play. The thing about Triton is a lot of it’s 20-big blind poker and under. I play a lot of online poker so I know 20-big blind poker and under, so it’s not that hard.”

Joining The ACR Team

Moneymaker found his most recent big run online ironic as playing in a previous Venom tournament was what led to him joining the ACR Poker team as a sponsored pro. He played his first Venom during the pandemic and made the final table, which led to some interesting discussions.

“When you make the final table, the CEO (Phil Nagy) calls you and wishes you good luck,” he says. “And he calls me up and he’s like, ‘Hey, is this who I think it is?’ Because on my account, my name was hidden but I registered under my own name and used all my true information. So, he knew who I was, but I was like, ‘Do you mind not telling people that I’m playing?’ PokerStars would not like that because I was still with them at the time.”’

Nagy assured Moneymaker his secret was safe. The two kept in touch and in August 2020, Nagy asked about the status of his contract with Stars. He’d been on recurring two-year contracts with the company and that was up in January. Nagy asked what it would take to buy him out and bring him on board at ACR.

“Negotiations lasted all of about five minutes and I was an ACR pro,” he says. “So I got my contract with ACR and I final tabled the biggest Venom in history, so it’s been pretty good to me.”

The landscape has changed considerably since Moneymaker cashed in big in 2003. At the time, sites like PokerStars, Full Tilt, and others were seemingly handing out deals to any player that made a major final table. Beyond Moneymaker, these days there’s more of a trend toward content creators coming on board to represent companies. Those contracts have also dropped in value, and the number of site ambassadors has also greatly thinned out.

“Back in the early days of PokerStars and Full Tilt, they were giving out sponsorships like candy,” he said. “If you lived in a foreign country or you were female or something unique, you would get a sponsorship. I think Full Tilt had more red pros and PokerStars had like 80 team pros. It just went bonkers. Then PokerStars got sold and obviously we know what happened with Full Tilt.”

“Instead of having a million sponsors, they focused on a couple of specific ones. They also started incorporating this concept of dreamers and video content creators. That’s the new world of poker now.”

Moneymaker doesn’t see that trend slowing down and believes that it has been successful in ushering in a new generation of players. As a seasoned pro who has seen the game and online poker landscape change considerably, Moneymaker is happy to remain one of those sponsored pros and has even done some streaming himself on ACR’s Twitch page, while joining in for final table commentary.

But the switch to representing the site has also invigorated him creatively as well. He’s now part of regular meetings, discussing and giving his input on promotions, customer signup goals, and making the player experience better. At Stars, he felt more “like a number than an asset they were utilizing.”

Moneymaker Incorporated

Just saying the name “Moneymaker” usually brings a recollection of his 2003 win from poker players and how important that time was to the game, so it’s no surprise that he has remained a bankable fan favorite. The first step was signing with ACR and then in September 2022, he unveiled a poker room in Paducah, Kentucky. That was followed by the Moneymaker Tour taking off in 2023.

The efforts have been a bit of a whirlwind. The Paducah venue was closed after the district attorney threatened legal action, including arrest against the owner and staff. He hoped to make Paducah a learning opportunity, to figure out how to run a club and eventually expand to larger markets like Louisville and Lexington. Undeterred by the closure, he opened a club in Louisville in early June and feels much more welcome.

“After spending all that money, I didn’t want to stop where I was at, so I continued to spend money and finally got the go-ahead to open up in Louisville,” he said. “The poker room is up and running and it feels good. This is what I’ve been working for, to get to this room, not the Paducah room. So it feels good to actually finally have it, see it come to fruition, and see people enjoying playing cards.”

Some recent legal changes opened the door for social poker clubs in the state, he says, and local officials have been more amenable to the business. The club functions much the same as poker rooms in Texas, with players paying membership dues like at a traditional country club. If things go well, he hopes to open a Lexington club at some point.

The Moneymaker Tour appears to be a successful venture so far as well. He is quick to credit executive manager Tony Burns, formerly of the Seminole Hard Rock, in helping the tour grow.

What’s it like having a tour with his own name on it?

“It’s obviously pretty cool,” he says. “But it’s a lot of work. Thank goodness I have Tony Burns that handles it all for me. When I hired him, I told him, ‘I want you to do everything. I don’t want to do anything except show up and play poker.’ He’s pretty much brought that to fruition and has done a phenomenal job.”

The operation has expanded from a small startup in Florida kicking off at Palm Beach Kennel Club to several other stops around the country. The October stop in Aruba marks the first international foray with more in the works, and he hopes to add casinos in Europe and Latin America. Moneymaker feels the company has been fortunate to find good partners that want to continue hosting events and repeat players have also helped the tour grow.

“I’ve seen Moneymaker Tour swag out at the World Series this summer, so that makes me feel good,” he says. “People are wearing the brand so that’s always cool.”

The initial goal was to eventually have a Moneymaker Tour stop at his poker club. Although the Louisville club might be too small for such a big event, the location he’s looking at in Lexington, however, would work better for tournaments.

“If we can prove one, that we can run the poker room, and two, we can run the kitchen effectively and make money doing both, I’ll start working toward Lexington and start that process,” he says. “I was a controller for a restaurant group and there’s one business I really said I would never get in – the restaurant business. But here I am.”

Balancing Act

That’s not all, a Moneymaker coffee brand is also in the works and may debut this year. With so much going on, finding time for family is a key goal for Moneymaker. He has four children, three living at home. He’s very appreciative of the job his wife Christy does in helping their family and holding down the fort in Mississippi (just outside of Memphis) when he’s away for poker and business.

“My wife is on me a lot about balancing and making sure that I’m taking care of all my responsibilities and it’s great,” he said. “She takes care of everything at home, so it makes it really easy. But she still wants me to be at home and be present. It’s a challenge though. When you try and play poker then you have roles that you have to fill at your poker tour and now my social club, also with ACR and then the family time – you put it all together and there’s not a whole lot of room for much else. It does keep you busy.”

Looking back on his career, Moneymaker has no major regrets. There are some things he wishes he’d done, maybe a deal or two that might have been fortuitous, but overall is happy with the road he’s traveled. As a husband and father running businesses around the game he loves, Moneymaker believes things have really worked out for the best.

“I feel like I have the perfect life,” he said. “I have a great family. They support me, I support them. I get to play poker for a living. I’m very comfortable. Of all the things, you might wish to go back and change, I probably wouldn’t want to change them because my life would be different than where it is now. I don’t really feel like I could improve on much at the present time. I’ve really got life by the horns living just about as good as I possibly could live.” ♠

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*Photos by PokerGO, Moneymaker Poker Tour