In April of 2025, Daniel Negreanu took to social media to argue that very few people on the high-stakes circuit were turning a profit.
With so many massive events across the various tours, playing all of these events would require eight-figures in tournament buy-ins – a number that Negreanu believes to be insurmountable for the majority of players.
"You need to cash for $12 million+ to turn a profit if you play all the Triton, WSOP, and other high rollers. In 2024 only 3 players cashed for $12 million," he wrote.
"What you envision at the highest stakes is mostly a mirage," Negreanu concluded.
In a recent interview with Winamax, high stakes professional Adrian Mateos refuted Negreanu's claims – as he did in the replies to the original post.
When pressed by the interviewer for an opinion on Negreanu's comments, the Spaniard didn't mince words.
“It’s simple. Negreanu’s comments come from a point of view where he doesn’t really know [the circuit]," Mateos said. "Negreanu is obviously poker’s most famous ambassador, the most important one and possibly the person who has done the most for this game. He’s a poker legend, but on this statement he’s simply wrong."
As a regular competitor on the super high roller circuit, Mateos knows the landscape better than most – a fact that Negreanu conceded in his reply to Mateos' rebuttal in the Twitter/X thread. According to Mateos, players who reach the buy-in figures listed by Negreanu are outliers, not the mean. By his estimation, only a few players spend more than $10M in buy-ins annually.
As he sees it, Negreanu is incapable of speaking accurately on the matter because his perception of the super high roller scene is uninformed and incomplete.
"He doesn’t travel outside the US, and he doesn’t know the numbers or how the circuit works," he told the interviewer.
'A very pyramid-shaped game'
In that same April 2025 post, Negreanu went on to assert that if you want to make a "good living" as a tournament player "your best bet is to focus on low to mid stakes buy in tourneys."
While he doesn't outrightly say so, Negreanu's statement could be interpreted as a belief that the low to mid stakes tournaments are less competitive than the highest stakes – an opinion unlikely to be disputed – and therefore a skilled player can expect a more reasonable return on investment and more money in their pocket.
Later in the Winamax interview, Mateos presented an alternative assesment.
"Poker is a very pyramid-shaped game, especially at high stakes, where most of the money goes towards the top of the pyramid," he explained. "That’s why my main goal has always been to get as high up that pyramid as possible, because that’s where the most money is."
Mateos' reasoning is straightforward: the top of the poker pyramid is where all the money goes and if you want to make the most money you have to reach that pinnacle.
The competition may be more fierce, but the profit margins and ROI for the best players increase as well.
"Poker is very exponential. If you’re among the elite, the profits are much higher than they are for an average regular."
On Chidwick's figures
Mateos also addressed revealing statements made earlier this year by Stephen Chidwick. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, Chidwick was asked about the true profit behind his $76M in career tournament earnings.
Chidwick estimated that of that figure only $5-10M was profit.
Chidwick went on to further clarify his statement, addressing misconceptions that had been generated by his response.
Mateos was supportive of Chidwick's honesty – and believes the figures he listed to be accurate.
“As for Chidwick, I think it’s a pretty interesting discussion and it was good that he was honest about the numbers. I do think those numbers are accurate," Mateos said. “Among poker players, when we travel to the biggest tournaments and compete at the highest levels, ROI varies depending on the player. There aren’t many players with an ROI above 5%, but I think the elite can achieve ROIs of 20–30%.”
The quotes from Adrian Mateos cited above have been translated from Spanish into English.
