Winning the main event of the World Series of Poker is undoubtedly the dream of every poker player. Amongst the winners are record-breakers, numerous hall of fame inductees, and some of the most-respected names in the poker world. Even though the list of past winners is diverse, there are many things that they have in common.
US-Bookies.com analyzed the past 20 years of the World Champions of Poker to find out what the average winner of the main event looks like.
| WINNER | WSOP winning year | Age (when won) | Nationality | Wearing sunglasses | Wearing Glasses | Wearing Hat | Wearing Black | Facial Hair |
| Robert Varkonyi | 2002 | 41 | American | Yes | Yes | |||
| Chris Moneymaker | 2003 | 27 | American | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Greg Raymer | 2004 | 40 | American | |||||
| Joe Hachem | 2005 | 39 | Australian | Yes | Yes | |||
| Jamie Gold | 2006 | 36 | American | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Jerry Yang | 2007 | 40 | American | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Peter Eastgate | 2008 | 22 | Danish | Yes | Yes | |||
| Joe Cada | 2009 | 21 | American | Yes | Yes | |||
| Jonathan Duhamel | 2010 | 23 | Canadian | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Pius Heinz | 2011 | 22 | German | |||||
| Greg Merson | 2012 | 24 | American | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Ryan Riess | 2013 | 23 | American | Yes | ||||
| Martin Jacobson | 2014 | 27 | Swedish | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Joe McKeehen | 2015 | 24 | American | Yes | Yes | |||
| Qui Nguyen | 2016 | 39 | American | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Scott Blumstein | 2017 | 25 | American | Yes | ||||
| John Cynn | 2018 | 34 | American | Yes | ||||
| Hossein Ensan | 2019 | 55 | German | Yes | ||||
| Damian Salas | 2020 | 45 | Argentinian | Yes |
GENDER
To this day, no woman has ever won, which makes 100% of the winners men. In the tournament’s 50 year history, only one woman made it to the final table of the main event – Barbara Enright.
AGE
In the 70s, the average age of the winner was 49, which remained the standard until the new millennium. Today, the average age of winners is 31, 47% are in their 20s at the time of their victory.
NATIONALITY
The World Series used to be open to Americans only. Nowadays, the whole world has the chance to win the coveted prize. Peter Eastgate from Denmark won in 2008, Martin Jacobson from Sweden in 2014, Argentinian Pius Damian Salas in 2020. However, Americans still make up most of the winners, with 63%.
EDUCATION
68% of the winners have gone to university, but some dropped out early on, mostly to focus full-time on their poker career.
47% of the winners obtained a degree in fields such as business, finance, psychology and law.
DRESS CODE
The dress code of poker players have been changing over the years – from cowboy hats to tuxedos to sponsor-filled sports dresses. Interestingly enough though, the most common for the winners at the final table is wearing black, with 57.8% of them doing so. 36.8% of them were also wearing a hat.
Arguably the most stereotypical item associated with poker players – sunglasses – didn’t turn out to be as common as one would expect, since only 36.8% of the winners chose to wear them. Last but not least, 63% of the winners had facial hair on the day of the final table.
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