Twenty years ago, Chris Moneymaker changed the poker world forever when he won the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. His victory sparked a massive poker boom, inspiring a new generation of players to take up the game.
His impact on the poker industry is still felt today, as he works as an ambassador for the game with leading US-facing site Americas Cardroom, inspiring new players to dip their toes into the world of poker.
Moneymaker's Journey Since the 2003 WSOP Main Event
Since his historic win, Chris Moneymaker has experienced several changes in his poker career. He ended his 17-year relationship with PokerStars in 2020, stating that he was ready to move on to something different.In 2021, he joined Americas Cardroom (ACR) as their newest ambassador, bringing a highly recognisable name to the growing US-facing poker site. Moneymaker has also been involved in launching his own social-poker club, Moneymaker's Lounge, in Paducah, Kentucky. The club offers cash-game action and has recently introduced tournament play.
For many, this recent spate of changes was surprising after so long promoting PokerStars, even through some uncertain times.
Black Friday on April 15, 2011 threatened to bring the curtain down on Moneymaker’s cushy little number. He had gone from a fresh-faced 27-year-old young man to a 38-year-old with a ten-year gap in his employment history, and for good measure, his accounting degree was all but obsolete.
After thoughts of making the move abroad to play on PokerStars legally, Moneymaker settled on a pay cut to remain at home, thinking it was the best deal he would get anywhere in the industry.
Further uncertainty came when the Scheinberg family sold off PokerStars for $4.9 billion to Amaya, Inc.
“New marketing guys came with the new owners. They were more focused on Daniel Negreanu and he was more relevant than me. They paid me less. I had a wife and three kids to support, but we lived in Memphis where it doesn’t cost a ton.”Even in what was a comfortable situation, Moneymaker didn’t feel that he was being used properly and so he came up with an idea to keep himself visible in the community,
“I asked them to send me out to play $600 tournaments. I was grassroots and I could spread the word of PokerStars. I felt that was a spot for me. I could go out and make some nice scores. They agreed to it. I played, kept busy and made money. I was a bankroll nit. I did it that way until Covid happened.”In the face of the pandemic, live poker games became scarce, legal ones at least, and Moneymaker found himself "going a little stir crazy." He wanted to return to online poker, but faced obstacles such as PokerStars not being available in Mississippi, where he lived at the time, and his sponsorship contract preventing him from playing on other sites.
In the end, he couldn’t resist the urge to play and signed up to Americas Cardroom (ACR) with an anonymous screen name and kept himself to himself for the best part of a year.
“I played totally under the radar for nine months and I enjoyed it. It took away the stress. I didn’t have to chat with people or have people taking shots or playing weird against me. I won a tournament every week.”Everything was going swimmingly well but then fate intervened to throw an awkward choice into Moneymaker’s life path after he made the final table for the $2,500 buy-in Venom.
Tradition holds that ACR CEO Phil Nagy rings up all players on the final table to ask how they wish to be paid and he recognised the voice right away. Moneymaker won $420K but wouldn’t allow Nagy to make it publicly known he was one of the finalists, although an idea was born that night.
It wasn’t long before Phil Nagy was back on the phone courting Moneymaker as he enquired what his terms would be to leave PokerStars after 17 years. This was August 2020 and it turned out that his contract was up for renewal in December.
Thinking that he had nothing to lose, Moneymaker threw out a high number that he didn’t think Nagy would take seriously, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, he was probably regretting not having pitched himself a little higher when it was time to ink the contract that would make him ACR’s star professional.
Now, more than two years later, the Tennessee native looks more comfortable than he ever has done during his career, looking right at home in the ACR fold.
Building a Legacy with the Moneymaker Poker Tour
If kicking off the poker boom wasn’t enough of a legacy, Chris Moneymaker has been working on building it up even more through the new Moneymaker Poker Tour. The tour aims to find the next poker star by sending the winner to the WSOP Main Event and offering them a sponsorship deal worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars.Moneymaker's 2003 WSOP Main Event win ignited a poker boom like never before, with millions of people watching the amateur defeat numerous top pros along the way. Many believe that the outcome of that tournament was the single most important moment in poker history. Today, access to poker games has never been higher, and Moneymaker's influence on the game continues to be felt.