Phil Ivey Net Worth

In a Card Player interview back in January 2014, the King of Instagram Dan Bilzerian stated that ‘Phil Ivey just went broke.’ One month later, Ivey crushed the $250,000 Aussie Millions Super High Roller winning AU$4 million in the process. Bilzerian never spoke about Ivey’s fortune again. Broke anyone?

Definitely not! In fact, Daniel Negreanu’s comment after the broke rumor spread ‘He’s doing just fine!’ is an understatement. He’s not only doing just fine, he’s actually living a baller life, playing the biggest poker games on the planet and gambling like a true degenerate whenever he has the opportunity - from sports and prop betting to baccarat and craps.

Unlike Bilzerian, he started from the bottom, using a fake ID to get into Atlantic City, taking the bus to the casino and at times, going hungry just because he didn’t catch a single break at playing cards. Now however, those days are ancient history with Phil Ivey being worth about...how much exactly? Let’s find out!

Phil Ivey Net Worth: $100 Million… More Or Less

According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, the 39-year-old American gambler has a fortune worth $100 million. The number is not as crazy as it may sounds for somebody who was labeled ‘broke’ almost two years ago. In 2010, the ‘Veteran Voice of the UFC Octagon’ and passionate poker player Bruce Buffer said in a radio interview that the very own Tiger Woods of Poker was worth $100 million. Yes, that’s before Black Friday happened so you’re probably wondering that things must have changed since then. Well, since we don’t have actual facts, all that revolves around Ivey (Buffer’s comment included) is subject to speculation. But we DO know certain undeniable facts.

For example, in the summer of 2014, Michael Kaplan got the chance to hang around with the one nicknamed ‘No Home Jerome’ because of his early fake ID days. He described Playboy Ivey’s house in Las Vegas - a full floor of a luxury high-rise that looks more like a mansion with many bedrooms, screening room, wine cellar and a terrace ‘large enough to live on.’ Kaplan briefly talked about Phil’s private garage and his three cars: a Rolls Royce, Range Rover and Aston Martin. The American poker player also owns a house in Cabo San Lucas.

If we travel back in time, we get some more clues: according to court documents filed for his divorce with ex-wife Luciaetta, the combined income of Ivey family in 2008 was estimated at $8 million. In 2011, in a court petition re-match, Ivey stated that he gave his ex-wife millions of dollars. The new documents revealed that the poker player was receiving $920,000 PER MONTH from Tiltware, a former company of the old pre-Black Friday Full Tilt Poker. During that time, he was also crushing online poker and highlighted basically all major TV poker shows. Still not convinced? Then let’s break Phil Ivey’s net worth to its core pieces.

Source Income #1: Online Poker

Everyone familiar with the online poker niche knows Phil Ivey is quite a legend. He was for many years the best poker player on the planet. In fact, his original user on Full Tilt Poker dated from the days when he was part of the FTP Professionals is ranked the highest in the all-time cash games money list. According to HighStakesDB, Phil Ivey won $19,242,744 in 319,285 hands played between 2007 and 2011; he has a huge lead over second place, Patrik Antonius who won over $11 million.

Because he was part of the investors team, Black Friday cast a shadow upon his name although he wasn’t on the accused side. In fact, just after Black Friday, he filed a lawsuit claiming FTP breached the contract and asked for $150 million in damages. He later withdrew his lawsuit and declined to participate at the 2011 World Series of Poker as a form of protest since all players’ FTP accounts were frozen (his owned included).

Since then, he played very briefly on PokerStars using the screename ‘RaiseOnce’ with no real results. He was probably busy making real money in Macau. Eventually, Full Tilt re-opened and all bankrolls were returned to their rightful owners. Ivey created a new online version of himself - ‘Polarizing’ - but the online game passed him by and he started losing. With his new screename, Ivey lost $6,317,217 in 217,170 hands. He moved to PokerStars after FT ditched the nosebleeds yet his downswing continued. So far, ‘RaiseOnce’ has lost $1,965,709 in 193,247 hands. Must be the soft live games...which leads us to the next chapter.

Source Income #2: Tournaments and Live Poker

Ivey is also a legend in Sin City, Las Vegas. He won 10 WSOP gold bracelets in his career and is second on the all-time bracelet list - only the Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth has more (14). The Tiger Woods of Poker also enjoyed his fair share of success in other poker circuits like World Poker Tour - he won the 2008 L.A. Poker Classic for $1,596,100 - and Aussie Millions - he won the $250,000 tournament three times. Overall, according to HendonMobDB, Ivey cashed in $23,199,534 from live tournaments, good for fifth on the all-time money list.

During the poker boom, he appeared on various TV shows like Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker and National Heads-Up Poker Championship where most of the time, he was the highlight of the table.

Is that all? Well, if we count the tracked games, yes, indeed it is. But what about the live cash games? That’s a different matter. Few know all the inside information about these games and none are willing to share with the rest of the world. What we know is this: Phil Ivey is a regular (or at least was) in the Big Game played at Bellagio, Las Vegas - a $4,000/$8,000 mixed cash game. And if you are in awe about those blinds, let us remind you about Macau, a haven for high rollers like No Home Jerome. There, the blinds are the highest - $5,000/$10,000/$25,000 and the stacks are worth millions of dollars. Nobody really knows how Ivey is doing there but since we’re talking about one of the smartest gamblers on the planet, we must assume he’s winning and probably big time, given the rumored soft field. How much? Probably in the tens of millions range.

We also know that Ivey experienced the thrill of making millions of dollars in one night last decade, in 2006 to be exact, when he played heads-up limit hold’em against Texas billionaire Andy Beal. He alongside a handful of poker professional known as ‘The Corporation’ were challenged by Beal to come play $25,000/$50,000 and $50,000/$100,000 and beat him at limit hold’em. After a tough start, The Corporation was down $13 million. Ivey joined in and won $16 million in a three-day stretch. Talk about swings…

Source Income #3: Other Gambling Activities

But Phil Ivey is not just a poker player, he’s a full-time gambler who likes to search for the edge that could make him a winner in the long run. He likes to bet on everything: according to the Playboy story, he once won $200,000 for landing a single, impossible shot on a golf course in Aruba. He bet on himself to eat vegetarian for a whole year and stay alcohol-free. He plays various casino games like craps and baccarat. You may say that those games are unbeatable and Ivey couldn’t possibly be a winner in the long haul. But bear in mind, we’re talking about the Tiger Woods of Poker. And a 2014 story shed some light on how he plays those games.

Last year, he won around $22 million at the baccarat tables in London and Atlantic City. Unfortunately for him, he never received his winnings as the two casinos - Crockford’s Casino in London and Borgata in Atlantic City - accused Ivey of cheating. No Home Jerome used a technique called edge-sorting while at the tables: thanks to a friends of his, Cheung Yin Sun - known as the ‘Queen of Sorts’ - he discovered patterns on the back of the playing cards and using these patterns, he could virtually see some of the cards ‘face up’. In October 2014, the London court found the American gambler guilty of cheating so Crockford had every right to retain his winnings. Borgata filed a similar lawsuit against him. Ivey fought back: he counter-sued Borgata and appealed in the Crockford’s case.

No matter the final rulings, these cases prove that the poker legend is definitely not your usual degenerate gambler - he takes calculated risks.

Phil Ivey As a Businessman

And since we’re talking about calculated risks, let’s also talk about his career as a businessman. Prior to Black Friday, he invested in Full Tilt - FT poker software to be exact named Tiltware - and received $920,000 per month ‘from his passive interest in the company.’ Of course, Black Friday revealed some daunting facts about FT (Ivey wasn’t involved) closing the company in April 2011.

After Black Friday, Ivey founded Ivey Poker, a company that created products to entertain and educate players worldwide. One of those products is a poker training site named ‘Ivey League’ launched last year.

Conclusion: Phil Ivey Is Definitely NOT Broke

All these income sources support CelebrityNetWorth.com take that Ivey’s belongings are worth $100 million...more or less. He may have lost a lot of money throughout his life but he definitely earned much more thanks to his competitive nature and his sharp mind. So Dan Bilzerian, you were wrong: Phil Ivey is far, far from being broke. He may not show it like Bilzerian does on a daily basis but he truly lives a dreamy life full of excitement and entertainment...much like Dan does only without all those cameras on...and those too-many-to-count women. Well, you get the picture...don't you?

What do you think? Is Ivey the $100-million man?