Poker Legend Daniel Negreanu Reveals How He Lost Money Despite Winning $2.7 Million In 2017

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Legendary Canadian professional poker player Daniel Negreanu was named the best poker player of the decade in 2014 by the Global Poker Index. Following his second place finish in the Big One For One Drop 2014 tournament, he is the biggest live tournament poker winner of all time, accumulating over $33,000,000 in prize money.

In 2017, the 43-year-old raked in  $2,792,104 in winnings. Sitting pretty, eh? Well things aren’t as they seem. In a year-end blog post for Full Contact Poker, the Poker Hall of Famer revealed that after buy-ins, he essentially broke even.

Per Negreanu:

Well, the truth is, if a player plays the full high roller schedule and cashes for $2 million, they are all but certain to have had a losing year, and that’s before expenses.

I felt like I had a decent year in terms of results, but when you break down the numbers into an actual profit vs loss, I essentially broke even!

Buyins: $2,874,164
Payouts:$2,792,104
Profit: -$86,140

Negreanu went on to say that at one point in 2017, he raked in $936,000 on a single event, but ended the year in the red after he played a couple one day $25,000 events at the Bellagio and re-bought a few times.

The man who has made it to the final table of the World Series of Poker 36 times listed the numbers of his last five years on the poker circuit.

2013
Events 66
Cashes 13
ITM % 19.7
Buy ins $1,211,883
Payouts $3,203,423
Profit $1,963,500
Avg Buy In $18,363
Hourly Rate $3200

2014
Events 56
Cashes 13
ITM % 23.2
Buy ins $3,183,926
Payouts $10,284,090
Profit $7,100,164
Avg Buy In $56,855
Hourly Rate $14,045

2015
Events 49
Cashes 11
ITM % 22.4
Buy ins $1,513,125
Payouts $2,482,479
Profit $952,920
Avg Buy In $30,880
Hourly Rate $3388

2016
Events 49
Cashes 10
ITM % 20.4
Buy ins $1,546,355
Payouts $300,431
Profit (-$1,246,693)
Avg Buy In $31,558
Hourly Rate (-$3097)

2017
Events 71
Cashes 21
ITM % 29.6
Buy ins $2,874,164
Payouts $2,792,104
Profit (-$86,140)
Avg Buy In $40,481
Hourly Rate (-$144)

FIVE YEAR TOTAL

Events 291
Cashes 68
ITM % 23.4
Buy Ins $10,329,453
Payouts $19,062,527
Profit $8,733,074
Avg Buy In $35,496
Hourly Rate (Hours 2565) $3405

It should be noted that most players do not fund 100% of their action, as sponsors typically pay a share, but Negreanu claims that he stakes his own money in these events despite having deals with companies like PokerStars and Poker Central.

Five year total profit of $8,733,074. Can’t feel too sorry for ya, Danny boy.

[h/t For The Win]

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.