Editor
Chris Moneymaker won a trophy with his name on it by winning the $1,100 Main Event at the Palm Beach Kennel Club as part of the Moneymaker Tour.
He defeated the 424-player field for a grand prize of $83,042. This is Moneymaker’s second career title on the tour, which carries his namesake, and his first Main Event title. His first title on his tour came just a few weeks ago in a $300 Omaha event.
The Moneymaker Tour was launched in 2023 to emulate the “Moneymaker effect” that took the poker world by storm in the 2000s following Moneymaker’s famous WSOP Main Event title in 2003. That win caught the nation’s attention and was broadcast far and wide on ESPN, becoming a massive contributor to the “poker boom”. He remains the most famous and the answer to the question of where the WSOP Main Event winners are now.
The poker boom had such an effect on poker that the WSOP Main Event went from 839 entries in 2003, when Moneymaker won, to 8,773 just three years later, in 2006 — an increase of nearly 1,000%.
Now 49 years old, Moneymaker remains an icon in the poker world, despite recent controversy with ACR as an ambassador. Players still want to meet him and play with him, as he is the inspiration for many in the poker world. Countless amounts of players tell the story of how they learned how to play Texas Hold’em through watching Moneymaker’s magical run.
That is one of the top appeals of the Moneymaker Tour as Moneymaker plays at each stop, so at any moment you could find yourself at the table with the legend himself.
The Tennessee native has over $8 million in career earnings, and his volume of play has only increased as the years have passed. His 2003 Main Event title remains his largest career cash, at $2.5 million, although he did have a result that came close in 2023, when he came in fifth in a Triton High Roller in London, for $2.03 million.
The Moneymaker Tour continues its busy 2025 season with stops coming up:
- Playground Montreal, May 7-20
- The Casino at Dania Beach (FL) May 27- June 1
- MGM Grand Las Vegas, June 26-July 6
- The Caribbean Poker Series Aruba, September 18-28
