WSOP Main Event Winners

We thought it would be nice to take a look at the WSOP (World Series of Poker) Winners from the past, the year they won and the amount of prize money they collected from winning the WSOP Main Event.

As you can see from the table below, in the past 30-odd years that the WSOP has been running the Main Event Winners have seen a massive change in the amount of prize monies awarded for first place in the largest poker tournament in the World, the WSOP Main Event.

The main event takes place over a number of days. The 2007 Main Event, as an example, was contested over a total of 12 days.

The buy-in is hefty as well, it costs $10,000 to take part in the World's Largest Poker Tournament but players often qualify through a series of Satellite tournaments through card rooms, both on and offline.

1970	Johnny Moss	$ N/A
1971	Johnny Moss	$30,000
1972	Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston	$80,000
1973	Walter "Puggy" Pearson	$130,000
1974	Johnny Moss	$160,000
1975	Brian "Sailor" Roberts	$210,000
1976	Doyle Brunson	$220,000
1977	Doyle Brunson	$340,000
1978	Bobby Baldwin	$210,000
1979	Hal Fowler	$270,000
1980	Stu Ungar	$385,000
1981	Stu Ungar	$375,000
1982	Jack Straus	$520,000
1983	Tom McEvoy	$540,000
1984	Jack Keller	$660,000
1985	Bill Smith	$700,000
1986	Berry Johnston	$570,000
1987	Johnny Chan	$625,000
1988	Johnny Chan	$700,000
1989	Phil Hellmuth Jr	$755,000
1990	Mansour Matloubi	$895,000
1991	Brad Daugherty	$1,000,000
1992	Hamid Dastmalchi	$1,000,000
1993	Jim Bechtel	$1,000,000
1994	Russ Hamilton	$1,000,000
1995	Dan Harrington	$1,000,000
1996	Huck Seed	$1,000,000
1997	Stu Ungar	$1,000,000
1998	Scotty Nguyen	$1,000,000
1999	Noel Furlong	$1,000,000
2000	Chris Ferguson	$1,500,000
2001	Juan Carlos Mortensen	$1,500,000
2002	Robert Varkonyi	$2,000,000
2003	Chris Moneymaker	$2,500,000
2004	Greg Raymer	$5,000,000
2005	Joe Hachem	$7,500,000
2006	Jamie Gold	$12,000,000
2007	Jerry Yang	$8,250,000