List Of All WSOP Main Event Winners

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the most prestigious poker event on the planet and this annual poker fiesta attracts players from across the glove each year. The series got a new home on the Las Vegas Strip at Bally’s and Paris after WSOP 2021 was announced as the last event to take place at the Rio. Each year, pros and poker enthusiasts alike slog hard for the coveted gold bracelets and titles.

Here on this page, we take a look at all former WSOP Main Event (ME) winners till date. The poker series started in 1970 and completed more than five decades so far. We have 52 ME winners (updated 1st June 2022) who shot to fame with incredible WSOP wins including poker legends like Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Moneymaker, Chris Ferguson, and several others.

ALSO READ: WSOP Rules You Surely Did Not Know About

The Grand Old Man of Poker — Johnny Moss, has three WSOP ME titles to his credit. The three titles include the inaugural edition of 1970, followed by victories in WSOP 1971 and WSOP 1974 as well. His first victory in 1970 was at a time when the concept of a Main Event didn’t even exist; the winner was selected by secret ballot after a short game with a set start and stop time.

Stu Ungar is the only other person in WSOP history to have nailed three WSOP ME titles in his career, namely in WSOP 1980, WSOP 1981 and WSOP 1997. Following Moss and Ungar’s three wins each is Doyle Brunson who nailed two consecutive Main Events in 1976 and 1977, with the same cards (T2) too. How amazing is that?!

Joining the bandwagon is Johnny Chan, who also holds the record of winning two WSOP ME titles back-to-back in 1987 and 1989. Since these early days in the game, the series has grown from being a single invite-only tournament to having 100+ events on the WSOP schedule each year.

The prize pools have also grown massively, with winners getting $10+ million pay cheques as well. The first time a prize was awarded was at the WSOP 1971 series where Johnny Moss won again and he won a prize of $30,000 at the time. On the other hand, the highest WSOP Main Event cash so far has been $12,000,000, which was won by Jamie Gold after he shipped the WSOP 2006 ME.

List of all WSOP Main Event winners:

Year	Nationality	Winner	Prize ($)
1970	American	Johnny Moss	NA
1971	American	Johnny Moss	30,000
1972	American	Thomas Preston	80,000
1973	American	Walter Pearson	130,000
1974	American	Johnny Moss	160,000
1975	American	Brian Roberts	210,000
1976	American	Doyle Brunson	220,000
1977	American	Doyle Brunson	340,000
1978	American	Bobby Baldwin	210,000
1979	American	Hal Fowler	270,000
1980	American	Stu Ungar	385,000
1981	American	Stu Ungar	375,000
1982	American	Jack Straus	520,000
1983	American	Tom McEvoy	540,000
1984	American	Jack Keller	660,000
1985	American	Bill Smith	700,000
1986	American	Berry Johnston	570,000
1987	American	Johnny Chan	625,000
1988	American	Johnny Chan	700,000
1989	American	Phil Hellmuth	755,000
1990	Iranian-British	Mansour Matloubi	895,000
1991	American	Brad Daugherty	1,000,000
1992	Iranian-American	Hamid Dastmalchi	1,000,000
1993	American	Jim Bechtel	1,000,000
1994	American	Russ Hamilton	1,000,000
1995	American	Dan Harrington	1,000,000
1996	American	Huck Seed	1,000,000
1997	American	Stu Ungar	1,000,000
1998	Vietnamese-American	Scotty Nguyen	1,000,000
1999	Irish	Noel Furlong	1,000,000
2000	American	Chris Ferguson	1,500,000
2001	Ecuadorian	Carlos Mortensen	1,500,000
2002	American	Robert Varkonyi	2,000,000
2003	American	Chris Moneymaker	2,500,000
2004	American	Greg Raymer	5,000,000
2005	Lebanese Australian	Joe Hachem	7,500,000
2006	American	Jamie Gold	12,000,000
2007	American	Jerry Yang	8,250,000
2008	Danish	Peter Eastgate	9,152,416
2009	American	Joe Cada	8,574,649
2010	Canadian	Jonathan Duhamel	8,944,138
2011	German	Pius Heinz	8,715,638
2012	American	Greg Merson	8,531,853
2013	American	Ryan Riess	8,359,531
2014	Swedish	Martin Jacobson	10,000,000
2015	American	Joe McKeehen	7,683,346
2016	Vietnamese-American	Qui Nguyen	8,005,310
2017	American	Scott Blumstein	8,150,000
2018	American	John Cynn	8,800,000
2019	Iranian-German	Hossein Ensan	10,000,000
2020	Argentinian	Damian Salas	1,550,969
2021	German	Koray Aldemir	8,000,000

Winning a WSOP bracelet is a big deal, but winning a WSOP Main Event can be a life-altering moment! It’s the biggest dream of almost every poker players in the world. We await to see which players can go on to create history by shipping future WSOP Main Events, though with the thousands of entries each year now, we doubt any one can win a WSOP Main Event twice anymore.

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Amarylisa Gonsalves

Amarylisa Gonsalves is a Content Writer at Gutshot Magazine. Advancing from a marketing background, she found her calling in writing. She takes delight in exploring genres and is a curious learner. Patient and ambivert, she believes in letting her work speak for itself. Apart from content writing, she finds solace in writing poetry by manifesting herself through words. Additionally, she adores indulging in drawing and DIY crafts.