Is Brandon Adams the world’s most successful gambler?

Geoff Fisk
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Posted on: December 22, 2020 7:25 pm EST

High-stakes poker fixture dominates for seven-figure score on DraftKings over the weekend

Brandon Adams should strike fear into the heart of any opponent in any game. The high-stakes poker regular doesn’t just limit himself to poker when it comes to putting himself in a position to win big money.

Adams has established himself as one of the world’s foremost daily fantasy sports players over the past decade, and the Harvard University graduate put those skills on display in this weekend’s DraftKings $12.5M Fantasy Football World Championship.

Adams placed four different teams in the top 20, earning $1.85 million from those entries in Sunday’s contest. The biggest of those came from a second-place finish, which earned Adams $1.25 million.

The poker community knows Adams well from his consistent excellence in the game over the past 15 years. Adams is also a fixture in the daily fantasy sports community, however, and is the owner of the Advanced Sports Analytics website.

Adams’ peers in both poker and fantasy sports congratulated him on his success in one of the biggest daily fantasy sports contests of the year.

Fantasy Labs co-founder Peter Jennings complimented Adams on the big wins, with Adams responding with a bit of insight on his strategy for this weekend’s $12.5M guaranteed DraftKings contest:

“Thanks buddy. I went off brand with the Hopkins-Kirk neg correlation. TY to @evansilva and @adamlevitan for the Pollard pep talk on the @EstablishTheRun pod this morning,” Adams tweeted.

In addition to his top-earning second-place team, Adams also posted entries in the Fantasy Football World Championship that finished fifth ($400,000), 13th ($100,000), and 14th ($100,000).

Adams’ success across multiple gambling verticals

Perhaps opponents in any kind of competition for money should steer clear of Adams at this point. Adams’ reputation as one of the world’s most successful gamblers is backed by multiple degrees earned at Florida University and a doctorate from Harvard.

Adams has taught economics and game theory at Harvard, and authored multiple books on economics and finance.

His career in poker spans 15 years, with Adams first appearing on the scene with multiple cash finishes in WSOP Circuit Events in the mid-2000s.

Adams’ career accomplishments at the poker table include a bracelet win at the 2019 World Series of Poker. He finished on top in the $3,200 No-Limit Online High Roller for a $411,561 score and his first career bracelet win.

His recent poker tournament success largely comes in high roller events with player fields densely filled with poker’s top players.

Adams’ biggest career poker score came at the 2017 Poker Masters, as he took down the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for $819,000. He added another Poker Masters title at the 2018 edition of the series, winning the $25,000 No-Limit event for a $400,000 score.

The player sits at just under $5.2 million in live poker earnings as 2020 comes to a close. His total DFS profits are unknown, but he consistently ranks in the world’s top 50 according to rankings from RotoGrinders.

Does Adams’ consistent success in poker and daily fantasy sports allow the 41-year-old crusher to call himself the world’s most successful gambler? The normally reserved Adams probably wouldn’t refer to himself as such.

It’s not too much of a stretch, however, to name Adams as one of the planet’s very best big-money skill gamers.

Featured image source: Flickr/World Poker Tour