WSOP Winners List

By Phil Lowe

16 May 2022

Phil Lowe 16 May 2022

Share this article

History of the World Series of Poker
Who has won the most WSOP? Find out in this article

wsop

The World Series of Poker represents the best in poker. The WSOP is the most prestigious poker tournament in the world, with the biggest winners and the most exciting series.

What makes the World Series of Poker so prestigious? Its history.

For more than three decades before the “Poker Boom” years of the early 2000s, the WSOP was the place to go for poker players.

In 1969, Tom Moore and Vic Vickrey invited the best players in the world to the Holiday Casino in Reno, Nevada for the Texas Gamblers Reunion.

At the time, only cash games were played, and as Benny Binion, owner of Binion’s Horseshoe, watched the action, he was planning on hosting an annual event in Las Vegas. After confirming with Moore and Vickery that they didn’t plan to hold another reunion, Binion got their blessing to take the show to Vegas.

1970 saw the birth of the WSOP. That year, Binion invited seven of the best players in the world to compete. Once again, they just played cash games, and players were asked to vote on who they thought was the best player.

Unsurprisingly, everyone voted for themselves. Binion then called for a second vote where all players had to vote for another player. Johnny Moss received the most votes and became the winner of the first annual WSOP, receiving a silver cup as an award.

From there, Binion changed the rules and the WSOP became a freezeout tournament. 1971 saw six players pay $5,000 to buy into the first WSOP tournament. Moss won again, taking home $30,000.

The following year, the buy-in was increased to $10,000 and it has remained the same ever since.

The WSOP grew year by year. Additional tournaments were added to the schedule, and in 1976 the silver cup was replaced with the now coveted bracelet.

For more than 50 years, winning the WSOP Main Event has been the dream of every poker player. Two players have won it three times (Moss and Stu Ungar), while Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan have won it twice. All four of them did it in back-to-back years.

WSOP Winners

Year	Winner
1970	Johnny Moss
1971	Johnny Moss
1972	Amarillo Slim Preston
1973	Walter Pearson
1974	Johnny Moss
1975	Brian Roberts
1976	Doyle Brunson
1977	Doyle Brunson
1978	Bobby Baldwin
1979	Hal Fowler
1980	Stu Ungar
1981	Stu Ungar
1982	Jack Straus
1983	Tom McEvoy
1984	Jack Keller
1985	Bill Smith
1986	Berry Johnston
1987	Johnny Chan
1988	Johnny Chan
1989	Phil Hellmuth Jr
1990	Mansour Matloubi
1991	Brad Daugherty
1992	Hamid Dastmalchi
1993	Jim Bechtel
1994	Russ Hamilton
1995	Dan Harrington
1996	Huck Seed
1997	Stu Ungar
1998	Scotty Nguyen
1999	Noel Furlong
2000	Chris Ferguson
2001	Carlos Mortensen
2002	Robert Varkonyi
2003	Chris Moneymaker
2004	Greg Raymer
2005	Joe Hachem
2006	Jamie Gold
2007	Jerry Yang
2008	Peter Eastgate
2009	Joe Cada
2010	Jonathan Duhamel
2011	Pius Heinz
2012	Greg Merson
2013	Ryan Riess
2014	Martin Jacobson
2015	Joe McKeehen
2016	Qui Nguyen
2017	Scott Blumstein
2018	John Cynn
2019	Hossein Ensan
2020	Damian Salas
2021	Koray Aldemir

Latest News

See all