Jonathan Duhamel

Jonathan Duhamel Profile Summary

Jonathan Duhamel's Net Worth in 2024: $32 million

If you’re inspired by professional gamblers and big wins in poker, you may know the name Jonathan Duhamel. He is best known for his big 2010 first prize win at the World Series of Poker Main Event for winnings of $8.9 million. He was the first Canadian to win a WSOP bracelet. Today, he’s in the pristine group of top 10 Canadian all time money list with live tournament winnings of over $18,000,000. His net worth today is $32 million and he’s a 3-time WSOP gold bracelet winner and one of the richest poker players in the world.

I think I play a great game so I knew I could do it if I made no mistakes.

What Does Jonathan Duhamel Do?

Jonathan Duhamel was a poker tournament specialist and between 2010-2015, he was a member of PokerStars Pro Team, a group of famous pro poker players who promote the largest online poker room. Duhamel ended his successful career in 2021 and no longer plays professionally. He does still play for fun from time to time though.

Alongside his poker career, Duhamel spent years fighting a case with the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) about taxes on his winnings. The CRA wanted him to pay millions of dollars in unpaid taxes on revenue from poker wins. Just like in the US, gambling winnings aren’t supposed to be taxed but the CRA argues that as it was Duhamel’s main source of revenue. Eventually, Jonathan won the case.

How Did Jonathan Duhamel Get Rich?

Duhamel’s wealth comes from poker wins in the live tournament circuit. Nearly half of his earnings came from his first-place victory at the WSOP in 2010 where he won $8.94 million. 

He was also the first Canadian to come out on top at the no-limit Texas Hold’Em main event. In 2015, he won his second WSOP bracelet and won $3.9 million. In total, Jonathan Duhamel won $18.012 million in live tournament earnings throughout his career.

Not happy with just playing and winning, Duhamel took every opportunity that came his way to build on his fame and expand his tournament career. It didn’t take long for him to reach the upper echelons of poker. 

His perseverance paid off and he became part of the PokerStars brand, acting as a spokesperson and participating in events. Duhamel leveraged his fame in the poker world to bring in $1 million in earnings through PokerStars.

How Does Jonathan Duhamel Like to Gamble?

Jonathan Duhamel focused on live poker tournaments in his career. After graduating high school, he attended the University of Quebec in Montreal. However, he won a large cash sum at EPT Prague and shifted his focus, deciding to become a professional poker player instead. Duhamel dropped out of school and focused on cash games before making a name for himself in poker tournaments. He was only 23 years old when he won the WSOP Main Event in 2010. 

In 2015, he won his second WSOP bracelet for coming first in the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop. He was also a member of Team PokerStars Pro. Jonathan Duhamel started small and quickly rose up to make millions in the tournament poker circuit. 

Duhamel is an inspiration to those who want to excel at the game of poker. With very little background, he became one of the top Canadians to play professionally.

What’s the Most He Ever Won?

Duhamel’s largest win was $8,944,310 when he defeated John Racener at the 2010 WSOP Main Event title. 

How Does Jonathan Duhamel Spend His Money?

Early in his career, Duhamel donated $100,000 of his winnings to the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation. Montreal Canadiens are an NHL hockey team, and this was the largest individual donation the foundation has received. 

He is now a known philanthropist, supporting One Drop. This is a non-profit organization that provides access to safe drinking water on a global scale. Not only does he donate portions of his tournament winnings, but he also auctioned off one of his WSOP gold bracelets in a fund raiser.

Gambling Stats

• Biggest Win: $8,944,310 
• Biggest Loss: Not publicly disclosed. 
• Duhamel won 3 WSOP bracelets in his career.

What We Can Learn from Jonathan Duhamel

At age 36, Duhamel doesn’t have to work again for the rest of his life. When he became interested in poker as a teenager, he focused all of his energy on learning the strategies and hands. Friends say it was his life and passion. While we don’t recommend quitting school to follow your dreams, the takeaway here is to find your passion and investigate the possibilities. 

Duhamel’s success was quite immediate, and he took the risk, left university, and started winning at tournaments. He started young, player poker with his friends and was unbeatable from the start. Though he’s quiet about his strategies, but we know for sure that poker was the focal point of his life. He learned by playing daily and soaked up any knowledge he could about the game. Safe to say, this approach paid off massively!

Practice Makes Perfect

Duhamel’s story reminds us that there is greatness in people even if they come from humble backgrounds. To be successful in poker, the strategy is important as well as reading people. This all takes a lot of practice but the more you invest your time into it, the better you become. It’s not just about intelligence or patience, but also about the perseverance to practice all the time. Duhamel inspires us with his drive for the game of poker and the incredible success he’s had.