How Does World Series of Poker Prize Money Compare to OnlyFans Creators’ and Twitch Streamers’ Monthly Income?

With the conclusion of the 2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, a prize pool of over $80 million was split by some of the world’s top poker players. In terms of earnings this year, 35 players earned at least $1 million each over the course of the nearly two-month gathering. Off prize money alone, this would make for a healthy summer income. However, the actual take-home pay for the top poker players often differs from their total winnings.

Recent years have shown a shift in how poker players typically make money. One of the biggest reasons is the explosion of the Internet, which has created myriad ways to earn a living. For poker players, this extends to limitless online poker, allowing the top players to win pots from others across the world, even as they’re competing on the main stage. However, the advances in technology also provide platforms for new forms of content to emerge. Among the subsections of the Internet world that have seen significant growth recently are Twitch and OnlyFans. Like poker, the two outlets provide access to considerable income, but actual earnings figures for the top personalities and creators can raise some eyebrows. In this blog, we’ll examine how some of the top poker players’ earnings compare to those of the biggest names on OnlyFans and Twitch.

Top Poker Players

This year’s Main Event winner, Espen Jorstad, won over $10 million during the 2022 WSOP, making him the top earner. He’s followed by Adrian Attenborough, who won over $6 million. This a noticeable increase from the previous WSOP, as 2021 featured a significant format and schedule change, reducing the overall potential of the event. Last year, Koray Aldemir won the Main Event, bringing just over $8 million in earnings, with 99% coming from the Main Event payout. Aldemir was followed by George Holmes, who saw nearly $4.5 million in earnings. In Jorstad’s case, he revealed in a tweet that he took about 56% of his Main Event prizes due to swaps with 14 other players. This is a common occurrence in professional poker tournaments, where players will make agreements to exchange percentages of each other’s winnings, thus increasing their chances of winning money depending on these players’ performances. After paying these deals out, Jorstad ended up with roughly $5.6 million.

The all-time WSOP leaderboards show more evenly distributed win totals. Antonio Esfandiari sits atop the list, with over $22 million in all-time earnings at the WSOP. Daniel Negreanu is just behind at $21 million. The next 18 players have more than $10 million in all-time WSOP earnings. However, this only represents winnings from the WSOP, as Justin Bonomo holds the title for all-time earnings from all open and invitational events, with more than $57.5 million in winnings. Bryn Kenney is just behind with $57.2 million. On this list, 112 players in total sit above $10 million, including Jorstad, whose total earnings sit at $10.2 million following his 2022 main event victory. Phil Hellmuth, who currently holds the most WSOP bracelets with 16, sits at fourth in the all-time WSOP earnings list with close to $17 million won.

Professional poker players’ yearly income can fluctuate, as earnings figures are largely based on how many events they compete in, what the stakes are, and a variety of other factors. However, some of the top players can rake in millions each year from high-stakes play. But this play is always subject to some risk.

“While the top winners in the WSOP walk away with a healthy prize, it doesn’t always tell the story for their full earnings during the event, as it’s not uncommon for pros to also play online when they’re not at the tables,” says Replay Poker Operations Manager Ash Keene. “The unfortunate reality is that many players walk away from the WSOP in the red, especially after factoring in travel expenses.”

Top Twitch Streamers

Last year, an anonymous hacker revealed various Twitch personalities’ payout information, as well as the site’s source code. This information was confirmed in a Video Games Chronicle article, meaning that the payout figures were accurate. These leaks caused growing conversations surrounding how much some of the top streamers have made.

At the top of the Twitch earnings list was Critical Role, a channel featuring voice actors playing Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. The channel earned more than $9.6 million from August 2019 to October 2021. xQc, a Canadian streamer and former professional Overwatch player, is second on the list with nearly $8.5 million in earnings during this time. According to the leaked data, 81 streamers made over $1 million on Twitch from August 2019 to October 2021. These numbers likely only reveal one piece of the streamers’ total income from the platform. And while these figures don’t eclipse the $10 million prize at the WSOP Main Event, they do represent a more frequent income.

Twitch streamers’ earnings derive from multiple factors, with donations and subscriptions being the most common ways to make money on the platform. Through these means, viewers pay certain amounts of money to receive exclusive benefits from the channel, such as custom chat emotes, ad-free streams and videos, or even subscriber-only content. Through subscriptions, successful streamers generate between $3,000 and $5,000 in monthly revenue, with the most popular earning much more. While affiliate links, merchandise, sponsorships, and other revenue streams exist for streams, subscriptions are usually the most consistent source of money for most streamers, and they usually account for the largest percentage of total earnings. So, as streamers gain more fans, they’re monthly income directly increases, and their opportunities for more income sources grow.

Top OnlyFans Creators

Since 2016, OnlyFans has been a lucrative platform for various content creators, especially those providing adult content. The platform noticed significant growth during the pandemic, with users rising from 20 million to 120 million in 12 months. While this has caused many creators to generate extra money on the side from monthly subscriptions, several users – mostly those with already-established followings – have made millions.

Though the top OnlyFans earners are believed to make at least $100,000 per month, the very top are making millions on a monthly basis. Blac Chyna sits atop the list, as the 33-year-old reality TV star and entrepreneur makes over $20 million per month on OnlyFans, with subscribers paying a $19.99 monthly fee for access to her content. Bella Thorne follows with an estimated $11 million in monthly earnings, after becoming the first creator to reach $1 million revenue on the platform in just 24 hours. Though she initially had a $9.99 monthly fee, she now offers free subscriptions.

Whereas males dominate the top spots for professional poker and Twitch, most of the top earners on OnlyFans are female. In fact, Tyga and Jamaican-American rapper Safree Samuels are the only men among the top 10 OnlyFans earners. Tyga makes $7.69 million per month from the platform, while Samuels makes $1.91 million. While the top 10 creators are responsible for over $60 million in total, the two males account for just under $10 million of it.

Everyday Jobs

According to Jobted, the average American earns a salary of $53,490. Obviously, different industries will see larger average salaries for full-time employees. For example, the medical field contains some of the most profitable positions, such as neurosurgeons, who make $428,300 per year on average. Meanwhile, the service industry has some of the lowest-paying jobs, such as hair stylists, who make on average $22,300 a year.

“Common professions may not have the flash that comes with being a professional poker, but they definitely offer more stability,” says Keene. “Most Americans’ jobs don’t also come with the risk that they could potentially lost their entire salary’s worth from a few bad days on the job.”

After the gathering of the world’s best poker players, many are left in awe over how much some professionals win during the WSOP. While the prize money can create some impressive income streams, they often don’t paint the full picture of how much players take home. Plus, other alternative income sources are quickly rising to generate equal reactions among those who aren’t as knowledgeable of the respective industries. And while the world’s top poker players will continue to win pots and boost their numbers on the all-time earnings leaderboards, many are still overshadowed by some of the top OnlyFans creators and Twitch streamers.