Roger Federer and David Beckham are household names all across the world because of what they have accomplished in professional sport. Federer will go down as one of the greatest players to ever grace a tennis court and Beckham is arguably the most popular football player England ever produced. These professional sportstars travel the world and are extremely well paid as they are considered to be right up at the top when it comes to sporting celebrities.
Daniel Negreanu 2013 Card Player of The Year on the other hand is anything but a household name. He is a professional poker player who is extremely popular and well known on the poker circuit because of his accomplishments but yet relatively unknown when it comes to a global scale. However, reports suggest that Negreanu earns a lot more playing professional poker than the likes of Roger Federer and David Beckham.
One of the reasons, poker is growing so rapidly and increasing in popularity is because it gives players the opportunity to win large sums of money on a regular basis and the chance of becoming a millionaire overnight. Negreanu recently posted a tweet which read
Been number crunching. My 2014 so far:
Events 44
Cashes 12
Hours 416
Buyins $2,931,661
Payouts $10,247,143
Profit $7,315,482
Barca next
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) July 11, 2014
Those are impressive numbers and the profit margins are much higher when compared to the sporting payouts that Roger Federer and David Beckham earned during the same time period.
There are also other professional poker players apart from Negreanu who have impressive payouts as well. A better comparison would be to analyze the earnings of the top 10 professional golfers, professional tennis players and professional poker players.
During 2013, top 10 professional tennis players on the ATP earned a total of $48,566,433; the top 10 professional golfers on the PGA earned a total of $52,775,979 whereas the top 10 professional poker players in the Global Poker Index brought in $47,870,710. There’s not much of a different in prize money, yet poker does not have the same fan following or popularity as tennis and football.
Professional poker tournaments are getting bigger with time and poker is now right up there with being one of the most lucrative sports in the world. There are also a number of professional sportstars who are playing poker as a hobby and some who are preparing to make it a full time career once they retire from professional sport. Some of the current sportstars who play poker include tennis ace Rafael Nadal, Brazilian football hero Neymar and Aussie cricketing legend Shane Warne.
