There was a time when celebrities could not get enough poker. They were everywhere, playing on several different cable channels and jockeying for screen time at the WSOP, all in hopes of a small bit of promotion that would be played on ESPN throughout the day and night.
Now only the best and most dedicated poker-loving celebrities rack up enough scores to warrant a place near the top The Hendon Mob's all-time celebrities money list. The Hendon Mob makes no mention of the qualifications required to be included on the list of celebrities, but hundreds of players are included for one reason or another.
The lower end of the list is filled with people who played in Celebrity Poker Tour events, and some, like Haliey Welch, have $0 in lifetime earnings. Many other famous faces from the early 2000s fill out the five pages of The Hendon Mob list with their success from an appearance on World Poker Tour's Hollywood Home Game and shows like it. Gary Busey and Daisy Fuentes each have $1,500 in lifetime earnings, while game show host Chuck Woolery turned the tables in poker's boom era with a $2,000 win of his own.
Meanwhile, some legitimate celebrities are just like regular people with one small min-cash on their profile from a real daily tournament. MMA veteran Jorge Masvidal has stopped by the aforementioned CPT, but he also cashed in a $80 daily at Seminole in 2014, a little more than a year after his UFC debut. Matt Damon is a few slots behind him with the single entry of a 45th-place finish in a $250 Deepstack Bounty at the 2011 World Poker Finals at Foxwoods.
If you throw aside all the one hit wonders and fairweather poker boom celebrities, you are left with a top 100 with some hardcore poker players who happen to have a famous job. There are others you may not have heard of, and some wide-reaching claims of "celebrity" — but this is poker and we consider Phil Hellmuth to be one, so the definition has range.
The top 10 celebrity money list
Alejandro 'Papo MC' Lococo is at the very top of the list and it's not that close. His $15M is a far reach from Rick Salomon's $9.9 million. Lococo was a high-profile musician in Argentina who had signed on as a PokerStars Ambassador before his seventh-place finish in the 2021 WSOP Main Event. He followed soon after a win in the Eureka Main Event at EPT Prague in 2022, but the majority of Lococo's $15M comes from a $12 million win in last December's $500K Triton Million at WSOP Paradise.
Top 10 celebrity all-time money list
- 1. Alejandro Lococo – $15,040,958
- 2. Rick Salomon – $9,906,283
- 3. David Einhorn – $6,146,731
- 4. Haralabos Voulgaris – $5,473,797
- 5. Jinho Hong – $2,808,681
- 6. Guy Laliberte – $2,535,768
- 7. Victoria Coren Mitchell – $2,504,766
- 8. Bruno Lopes – $2,195,858
- 9. Gabe Kaplan – $2,015,776
- 10. Patrick Bruel – $1,686,432
The rest of the top ten may not pass your personal celebrity smell test, but they are who they are. Salomon is famous for being famous, and most of his money comes from three The Big One for One Drop finishes. David Einhorn is a big-time investor that you would know very well if you needed a lot of money for your business, and he claimed most of his money in The Big One for One Drop, but he did finish 18th in the 2006 WSOP Main Event.
Haralabos Voulgaris parlayed his high-profile NBA sports betting knowledge into a job with the Dallas Mavericks and he has six-figure poker scores dating back to the mid-2000s. He was recently seen at Triton Monte Carlo in 2024, where he finished fourth in the Main Event. Jinho Hong is a big deal in South Korea, where he was a professional Starcraft player and is a TV personality. He has been playing a lot of poker in the last few years all over the world and he may be at the top of this list when all is said and done.
Coren Mitchell the best?
The rest of the top ten includes Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, who still jumps in the occasional tournament in Montreal, and British TV host Victoria Coren Mitchell. Coren Mitchell is perhaps the most accomplished of any celebrity with two European Poker Tour Main Event wins in 2006 and 2014. She was the first woman to win an EPT event and still appears regularly on tour.
After French rapper and European tour regular Bruno Lopes, and before French singer Patrick Bruel, the big surprise in the top 10 is Gabe Kaplan at #9. It's not so much a surprise that he would be there, but more that his Hendon Mob profile would have so much variety. His first big score was a $190K win in Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker in 1980. Kaplan has a few other wins from throughout that era without a dollar amount, and another $108K victory at the 1987 Knights of the Round Table in Atlantic City. The rest is a mix of WSOP finishes and a few big scores from the WPT and Poker After Dark, but it all adds up to over $2 million. He was most recently seen in 2023 WSOP in the $10K Super Turbo Bounty, where Kaplan finished in the money in 27th.
Other celebrities of note
The rest of the top 100 is full of household names and otherwise. Jennifer Tilly is 14th, just ahead of Nate Silver in 15th and Maria Konnikova in 16th. Retired NFL big man Richard Seymour is in 19th and UFC ring announcer Bruce Buffer is in 31st.
Ben Affleck (Batman) has $365,400 from his 2004 win in the California State Championship, beating Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) and his $218,858. Elsewhere, it appears three Survivor contestants have cracked the top 100. Albert Destrade (Survivor: South Pacific), Boston Rob Mariano (Several seasons), and Shirin Oskooi (Survivor: Worlds Apart and Cambodia) are all accomplished poker players, but Survivor: Island of Idols contestant Ronnie Bardah was not afforded celebrity distinction.
The bottom of the top 100 may be more true to the 'celebrity spirit' than the top of it, with soccer star Sergio Aguero rounding out the list in 100th with $108K in lifetime earnings behind American Idol's William Hung, actor Mekhi Phifer, tennis superstar Boris Becker, and the NFL's Calais Campbell, who plays regularly in the offseason. Norman Chad (87th) beats Vince Van Patten (90th), and TV's Brad Garrett is right behind in 91st. Just outside the top 100 is the late Norm Macdonald, who sits in the 125th all-time money spot.
Data provided by The Hendon Mob.
Images courtesy of Celebrity Poker Tour/PokerStars.
