WSOP Main Event winners — the complete catalog
Every champion of the World Series of Poker Main Event from the tournament's founding by Benny Binion in 1970 through 2024. Sortable by year, prize, or entrant count. Click any row to see the winner's Wikipedia bio loaded live. Includes the back-to-back winners (Moss, Brunson, Chan, Ungar), the youngest winner (Hellmuth at 24), and the breakouts that changed poker forever (Moneymaker 2003, Eastgate 2008).
| Year | Winner | Country | Prize | Entrants | Runner-up |
|---|
Bio data attributed to Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Prize and entrant data compiled from public WSOP records. 2025 champion will be added once verified.
The eras of the Main Event
1970–1982 — The Las Vegas era
Benny Binion founded the tournament at Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas. Fields were tiny — the 1970 event had no proper structure (Johnny Moss was voted champion by his peers), and the 1971 freezeout had just 7 entrants. By 1982 the field had grown to 104. The era produced the foundational champions: Moss (3 wins, including the very first), Doyle Brunson (back-to-back 1976/1977), and the meteoric Stu Ungar (1980/1981 back-to-back).
1983–2002 — The professional decades
Fields grew from a couple hundred to over 600. The first $1 million first-place prize was awarded in 1991 (Brad Daugherty). Phil Hellmuth won in 1989 at age 24, a record that still stands. Stu Ungar made his miracle comeback in 1997. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson kicked off the Y2K era with a 2000 win that already showed signs of the internet players to come.
2003–2010 — The Moneymaker boom
Chris Moneymaker's 2003 win — an amateur qualifying online for $86 and beating Sammy Farha heads-up on ESPN — single-handedly created the modern poker industry. Fields exploded: 839 entrants in 2003, 2,576 in 2004, 5,619 in 2005, peaking at 8,773 entrants in 2006 when Jamie Gold won $12 million. Online qualifiers dominated. Peter Eastgate became the youngest winner ever in 2008 (age 22, since broken by Joe Cada at 21 the next year).
2011–present — The November Nine era and beyond
The "November Nine" format (final table held months after the main event for broadcast purposes) ran from 2008 to 2017. Fields stabilized around 6,000-8,000. Pius Heinz (2011) became the first European champion since Mansour Matloubi (1990). Qui Nguyen (2016) and Hossein Ensan (2019) brought the trophy back to Europe and the Middle East. The 2020 event was split into two tournaments (international + US) due to COVID. By 2023, Daniel Weinman won a record 10,043-entrant field — the largest in WSOP Main Event history.
Famous Main Event hands on this site
Free tools to play your own tournament
- Tournament timer — multi-device synced, voice announcements, free
- Payout calculator — auto-balanced prize structures
- ICM calculator — final-table equity for stacks + payouts
- International buy-in & timezone converter — for online home leagues