TableLab
Home / Blog / Who Makes Money in High-Stakes Poker

Who Makes Money in High-Stakes Poker? A $20 Million Match, a Profit Argument and a Staking Dispute

By Rohit Kaul · October 6, 2026 · 10 min read

POKER NEWS The number you see isn’t the number they keep. A $20M heads-up match. An argument over what high rollers earn. A disputed staking share. three stories · the staking math · your own number

Three stories in four weeks, all about who makes money in high-stakes poker. On September 11, Ossi Ketola, who plays as Monarch, won $10 million from Patrik Antonius in one heads-up match (PokerNews). On October 1, poker.org reported Adrian Mateos saying Daniel Negreanu has it wrong about what high rollers earn (poker.org). On October 3, Hustler Casino Live said one of its regulars would take a break while it reviews allegations that began with a disputed staking share (PokerNews; poker.org).

In the first two, the number in the headline is not the number a player keeps: cashes are gross, and results get divided afterward. The third is still open, and we take one narrow point from it.

TL;DR: Tournament earnings lists show gross cashes, not profit, and at the top of the game the gap is large. Stephen Chidwick puts his own profit at $5 to $10 million on $76 million in recorded cashes as of January 2026. Daniel Negreanu's published ledgers for six years show about 43 cents of stated profit per dollar cashed, before swaps, sold action, taxes and expenses. Negreanu says a full high-roller schedule now costs about $12 million a year in buy-ins and that what people picture at the highest stakes is mostly a mirage. Adrian Mateos says he's wrong, and that elite players can reach returns of 20 to 30 percent. Negreanu says almost every pro on that schedule sells or swaps action through staking deals, so a result is shared before it's counted. The same holds at any stake: your real number is what's left after expenses and after anyone else's share.

What did the $20 million heads-up match show?

It showed how fast a headline number can move, and how little it says about whose money it is. Ketola and Antonius each put up $10 million at Triton's Super High Roller Series in Jeju on September 11, and Ketola won all of it in about four hours (PokerNews; PokerListings; SoMuchPoker).

The blinds were $50,000/$100,000 (PokerListings). Ketola took one pot with a $3 million river bet holding six-high, and later made a straight flush against a straight (PokerNews). It ended when his king-jack suited beat ace-king suited, all-in before the flop, in a pot of $8.15 million (PokerListings). SoMuchPoker's equity figure had Antonius at 71 percent when the money went in (SoMuchPoker).

PokerNews called it the biggest single-match defeat in livestream poker history. The reports we read don't say whether either player sold part of his side, and we have no information that either did. The public figure rarely shows whose money it was. A 71 percent favorite also loses about three times in ten at any stake, which is what the buy-in rules in our poker bankroll management guide are for.

Is Negreanu right that the highest stakes are mostly a mirage?

Partly. Adrian Mateos disputes his cost figure. The broader point, that gross cashes say little about profit, fits the two public accounts we could find: Stephen Chidwick's and Negreanu's own.

The argument began in April 2025. Negreanu posted that playing the highest-stakes tournaments around the world cost no more than $250,000 a year in 1999, roughly $1.2 million in 2013 and roughly $12 million in 2025, and that only three players cashed for more than that in 2024 (Pokerati). He said that what people picture at the highest stakes is mostly a mirage, and that almost every pro on that schedule sells action, swaps, or both (PokerNews).

Mateos replied at the time that very few players spend more than $10 million a year, because it means missing no stops and playing every game (Pokerati). He said his own 2024 spend was well under $12 million, in a year PokerNews put his cashes at $13.1 million (PokerNews).

In a Winamax interview reported by poker.org on October 1, 2026, Mateos said: "He's a poker legend, but on this statement he's simply wrong." He added that Negreanu doesn't know the numbers or how the circuit works. His own picture is that few players have a return above 5 percent, that the elite can reach 20 to 30 percent, and that poker is pyramid-shaped, especially at high stakes, with most of the money going to the top. He also said Chidwick's estimate of his own profit, covered below, looks accurate to him (poker.org; the quotes are poker.org's translation from Spanish). The report carried no response from Negreanu.

Our read: on Mateos's own numbers the two are not far apart. On $10 million of buy-ins, which he says few players reach, a 5 percent return is $500,000 before travel, and 20 to 30 percent is $2 to $3 million (our arithmetic). A few players earn well and most earn little, which is close to what Negreanu claimed.

Seth Davies told PokerNews, in an interview it quoted in April 2026, that almost every high-stakes regular he knows holds very big pieces of themselves, and that 50 percent is very common (PokerNews). On that account, a player who sells action still keeps about half of each result.

The Triton Invitational, three days after the heads-up match, showed the pyramid Mateos describes. Joao Simao won the $200,000 event for $7.25 million after being down to two big blinds on the second day (PokerNews). There were 173 entries and 31 places paid (PokerNews event page), so 142 entries returned nothing.

Recorded cashes against stated profit

The headline number and the number kept ($M) Stephen Chidwick, January 2026 $76M recorded cashes $5–10M by his own estimate (7–13%) cashes profit Daniel Negreanu, January 2023 $50.1M recorded cashes $18–22M PokerNews estimate (36–44%) cashes profit Cashes: The Hendon Mob totals as reported by PokerNews. Profit figures are estimates, not accounts. Percentages are our arithmetic.
Two public estimates. Chidwick's is his own, given without knowing the exact figure (PokerNews). Negreanu's is a PokerNews estimate he agreed was reasonable (PokerNews). They were made differently and aren't directly comparable.

Negreanu is one of the few players to publish buy-ins next to cashes. Two pages give both: his own site for 2013 to 2017, and CardPlayer's report of his 2022 figures (danielnegreanu.com; CardPlayer). Across those six years he paid $13.55 million in buy-ins and cashed for $23.94 million, and his stated profit adds up to $10.31 million. That's about 43 cents for every dollar cashed (our arithmetic; his stated profit runs about $75,000 below cashes minus buy-ins, and we use his figure).

Negreanu’s buy-ins vs cashes, six self-reported years ($M) buy-ins cashes 2.5 5 7.5 10 0 1.21 3.20 2013 net +1.96 3.18 10.28 2014 net +7.10 1.51 2.48 2015 net +0.95 1.55 0.30 2016 net −1.25 2.87 2.79 2017 net −0.09 3.22 4.88 2022 net +1.63 2013–17: danielnegreanu.com. 2022: his figures via CardPlayer. Net is his own stated profit. Tournaments only.
The six years for which both buy-ins and cashes are published. Two were losing years, and 2014 supplies most of the profit.

Those six aren't his whole record. By his own count his profit from 2013 through 2022 was $13.1 million (CardPlayer), and 2023 was a $2.2 million loss (PokerNews), which our post on how poker pros handle downswings covers. His footnote to the totals he posted in December 2022 says they "do not include any swaps, selling to fans, taxes, or expenses" (CardPlayer).

What is the Hustler Casino Live review about?

The review concerns allegations about one of the show's regulars, and the show says it has reached no conclusion. The first one reported concerned a share of action, and that is the only part we look at here.

On October 3, Hustler Casino Live posted that it was aware of allegations concerning Britney Jing, was gathering information from the people involved, would not draw conclusions before its review was complete, and that Jing would take a break from appearing on the show while it did so (PokerNews). poker.org describes Jing as a regular on the stream and reports that the matter started with a claimed staking debt (poker.org).

Chengsi Ye, who goes by C Ye, alleges that Jing had bought 30 percent of Ye's action, that Ye then lost $60,000 in one session, and that Jing did not pay the resulting share, which Ye puts at $18,000 (poker.org; PokerNews). Jing denies owing anything. "I have no outstanding debts, and I have always paid out my shares right away," Jing wrote on September 24 (PokerNews), and Jing has said the accounting of an earlier session is itself in dispute (poker.org). PokerNews reports that other regulars then made accusations of their own, including of collusion. Those are unproven, and we don't cover them here. poker.org's October 5 report recorded no finding.

We have no view on who is right, and the review may settle it. The point for other players is narrower. Shares of action are often agreed informally. One agreed in writing before the session leaves less to argue about afterward.

Our read: if you take or sell a piece, write down the percentage, any markup, which sessions or events it covers and when it settles, and send it to the other person before the cards are dealt.

How does poker staking work?

In poker staking, a player sells a percentage of a buy-in to someone else, who then receives the same percentage of whatever that entry wins. The price of the share can include a premium called markup, and longer-term backing deals add profit splits and makeup.

Applied to one result: take a $200,000 entry, the price of the Triton Invitational, and suppose it cashes for $1 million. The figures are our arithmetic on the definitions above, not anyone's actual deal.

One $200,000 entry under four deals: what the player risks and keeps
DealBackers payPlayer's own money inPlayer's net if it cashes $1MPlayer's loss if it busts
Keeps 100%—$200,000+$800,000−$200,000
Sells 50%, no markup$100,000$100,000+$400,000−$100,000
Sells 50% at 1.2$120,000$80,000+$420,000−$80,000
Sells 70% at 1.2$168,000$32,000+$268,000−$32,000

Our read: markup is how a strong player gets paid for edge whether or not the entry cashes. And in three of these four rows, half or more of the $1 million that would appear beside the player's name belongs to someone else.

What does this mean if you play $2/$5 and not $200,000 events?

The same rule at a smaller size: your result is what's left after costs and after anyone else's share, and only a log can tell you what that is. The Hendon Mob lists cashes because compiling profits would be nearly impossible (PokerNews). You have one player's results to compile, so you can.

At live cash stakes the missing costs are tips, food, travel, and the occasional piece of a friend's tournament. None of them shows up in a session's win or loss, and a good live win rate on paper can be a mediocre one after them.

TableLab keeps expenses separate from each session's profit, so your win rate stays a clean measure of how you played and the net after expenses sits beside it. It doesn't track pieces sold; if you sell action, enter your own share of the buy-in and of the cash.

A six-year total that rests on one year, like the one charted above, also says little about the next six; our tournament variance post covers the sample a return needs.

What to watch next

Hustler Casino Live has said it will give an update when it has more to share, and set no date (PokerNews). Negreanu may answer Mateos; he hadn't in the report we read. We'll update this post when either happens.

FAQ

Do Hendon Mob earnings show profit?

No. The Hendon Mob records cashes, not buy-ins, so its totals are gross. PokerNews put Daniel Negreanu's recorded cashes at about $50.1 million in January 2023 and estimated his profit at $18 to $22 million, a range he agreed was reasonable (PokerNews).

What is markup in poker staking?

Markup is the premium a player charges when selling a share of a buy-in, quoted as a multiplier. At 1.2, ten percent of a $10,000 entry costs $1,200 instead of $1,000 (Upswing). Markup isn't universal: Negreanu sold 13 percent of his WSOP Paradise 2025 schedule with none (PokerNews).

How much does a year on the high-roller circuit cost?

Negreanu's estimate is roughly $12 million in buy-ins for every top-stakes event in 2025, against roughly $1.2 million in 2013. Adrian Mateos disputes it: he says very few players spend more than $10 million a year, and that doing so means missing no stops and playing every game (Pokerati).

Who won the $20 million match between Monarch and Patrik Antonius?

Ossi Ketola, who plays as Monarch. He and Antonius each put up $10 million at Triton's Super High Roller Series in Jeju on September 11, 2026, and Ketola won all of it in about four hours at $50,000/$100,000 blinds. The last hand was king-jack suited against ace-king suited for $8.15 million (PokerNews; PokerListings).

The bottom line

A $20 million match and an argument about a $12 million schedule turn on the same gap. The figure everyone repeats is gross, and the real one depends on costs and shares that are rarely published. The Hustler Casino Live matter is a different kind of story and still open; the one general point in it is that shares are worth writing down.

Log the buy-in, the cash-out and what the session cost you, and be exact about anyone else's piece. Start logging your sessions.

Sources

Figures are as published by the named sources on the fetch date, 2026-10-06. Player results are self-reported or estimated, not audited accounts, and the staking table is our own arithmetic. No finding in the Hustler Casino Live review had been reported in the sources as fetched; allegations are reported as allegations and attributed to the people who made them. Poker carries real variance and real risk; nothing here is financial advice. Corrections: [email protected].