The 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event made millionaires of its nine players… or did it? Tax laws vary from country to country when it comes to paying tax on your poker winnings. With players from countries such as Canada, the United States, France and Bulgaria participating, who walked away with what?
A History of Variation
The recent history of the WSOP Main Event has seen players from U.S.A., Argentina, Germany, and Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway all win the top prize over the past decade. That top prize has varied, of course, with Damian Salas winning just $2.55 million in the WSOP ‘Hybrid’ Main Event affected by COVID in 2020 and last year’s winner Daniel Weinman scooping a record $12.1 million first-place prize.
Tax, however, affects each Main Event winner differently. In 2014, the Swedish winner Martin Jacobson paid out $3m in tax in his native country upon his return. Others paid both significantly more and less, with Norwegian Espen Jorstad actually taking home less than half of his $10m prize eight years later.
Here are all the winners from the past decade and what they actually took home.
| WSOP Main Event Winners 2014-2023 | ||||
| Year | Winner | Country | Top Prize | Winnings |
| 2014 | Martin Jacobson | Sweden | $10,000,000 | $7,000,000 |
| 2015 | Joe McKeehen | United States | $7,683,340 | $4,302,670 |
| 2016 | Qui Nguyen | United States | $8,005,310 | $4,563,026 |
| 2017 | Scott Blumstein | United States | $8,150,000 | $4,645,500 |
| 2018 | John Cynn | United States | $8,800,000 | $5,016,000 |
| 2019 | Hossein Ensan | Germany | $10,000,000 | $7,300,000 |
| 2020 | Damian Salas | Argentina | $2,550,969* | $2,015,265 |
| 2021 | Koray Aldemir | Germany | $8,000,000 | $5,840,000 |
| 2022 | Espen Jørstad | Norway | $10,000,000 | $4,960,000 |
| 2023 | Daniel Weinman | United States | $12,100,000 | $6,840,000 |
A Numbers Game
In 2024, eight weeks in Las Vegas broke new ground. Between the end of May and July 28, the 55th annual WSOP packed tables at Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas with Jonathan Tamayo winning the Main Event’s top prize of $10m. Tamayo, who comes from Humble in Texas, finished first from a record field of 10,112 entrants yet with the World Series of Poker listening to fans, his top prize was over $2m less than Weinman won in 2023.
The 2024 WSOP Main Event created the largest single prizepool for any poker tournament in history, with $94,041,600 distributed among those who finished in the money places.
“It’s special to see the passion for poker continue to deliver records on an annual basis,” said WSOP Senior Vice President and Executive Director, Ty Stewart at the conclusion of the 2024 WSOP. “The laundry list of records that were shattered this summer at the WSOP continue to show that the poker renaissance is upon us.”
Poker Boom 2.0 continued apace this summer, with 229,553 entries across all events, a clear record, the most of all-time. Flight 1d of the $10,000-entry World Championship saw 5,014 players sit down – the biggest flight of Main Event history. It wasn’t just No Limit Hold’em that set records; the $11.18 million prizepool for Event #73, the PLO High Roller event was the biggest PLO prizepool in poker history, too. An amazing 4,280 players took their seats in Event #86, the Mystery Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha event, making it the biggest field in a PLO event ever.
A total of 10,939 entries in Event #54, the ‘Millionaire Maker’ event became the biggest field ever recorded for a $1,500+ entry tournament. Overall at the 2024 WSOP, 34,717 places were paid out, with that being an increase on the 32,282 paid a year earlier, as the WSOP broke records for the number of events with $2m plus prizepools (54) and $10m plus prizepools (seven).
Who Won Biggest in 2024?
To this year’s Main Event, then. While almost all the players involved paid tax, there was one who escaped the taxman, that being Boris Angelov. The Bulgarian kept every cent of his $2,500,000 for finishing fifth and therefore took home $400,000 more than the fourth-place finisher, Jason Sagle. The Canadian had to pay the blanket 30% cross-American tax that exists as an agreement between the United States and Canada.
Jonathan Tamayo paid an assumed 24% on his winnings, notwithstanding the profit he paid out to part-backer and controversial figure Dominik Nitsche among others. Tamayo’s taxation means that this year’s winner took home ‘just’ $7.6 million before paying out his friends on the rail and presumably renewing all that anti-virus software on the laptops involved.
While this year’s WSOP is over in Las Vegas, the World Series of Taxation… ahem, Poker, continues in Europe and The Bahamas as WSOP Europe (September 18 thru October 9) and the hotly anticipated return of WSOP Paradise (December 6 thru 19). The next time you can expect the calculators to come out for players winning seven figures is in the WSOP Europe Main Event, which begins on October 4.
We can’t wait.
| 2024 WSOP Main Event World Championship Payouts (Before & After Tax): | ||||
| Place | Place | Country | Pre-Tax | Post-Tax |
| 1st | Jonathan Tamayo | United States | $10,000,000 | $7,600,000 |
| 2nd | Jordan Griff | United States | $6,000,000 | $4,560,000 |
| 3rd | Niklas Astedt | Sweden | $4,000,000 | $2,800,000 |
| 4th | Jason Sagle | Canada | $3,000,000 | $2,100,000 |
| 5th | Boris Angelov | Bulgaria | $2,500,000 | $2,500,000 |
| 6th | Andres Gonzalez | Spain | $2,000,000 | $1,620,000 |
| 7th | Brian Kim | United States | $1,500,000 | $1,140,000 |
| 8th | Joe Serock | United States | $1,250,000 | $950,000 |
| 9th | Malo Latinois | France | $1,000,000 | $640,000 |
