Is Gus Hansen broke?

Gus Hansen, one of the most recognizable professional poker players has had a tough time over the past few years, but is he broke?

Has Gus Hansen gone broke?

Gustav “Gus” Hansen calls himself a professional gambler, rather than a professional poker player. Before he played poker, he was one the best in the world at backgammon and he often makes wild bets away from the poker table. For example, he once reportedly lost $25,000 in a boxing match against fellow poker pro Theo Jorgensen. He has also lost more money on Full Tilt Poker than any other player except maybe Guy Laliberte, so poker fans sometimes wonder if Gus Hansen is broke.

Tournaments and High-Stakes Cash Games

Hansen currently sits at 15th on the all-time tournament money list with total career earnings of $11,258,053. He was the first player to claim three World Poker Tour titles, winning a major event in each of 2002, 2003, and 2004. His total winning in those three tournaments alone totaled more than $1.5 million. He won the Aussie Millions Main Event for $1,192,919 in 2007 and he won the WSOP Europe high-roller heads-up event for $444,925 in 2010, but the biggest tournament cash of Gus Hansen’s career came in a tournament he did not win. His top five tournament cashes:

– 2nd place for $1.714 million in the 2008 $25,000 WPT World Championship
– 1st place for $1.192 million in the 2007 Aussie Millions A$10,000 Main Event
– 1st place for $1 million in the 2005 Poker Superstars Invitational
– 1st place for $1 million in the 2010 Full Tilt Poker Million IX
– 1st place for $1 million in the 2012 One Drop Mega Satellite*

*The satellite tournament had a $25,000 buy-in. Hansen won a seat into the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for the One Drop at the 2012 WSOP.

In addition to his tournament success, Hansen is reportedly a consistent winner in some of the biggest cash games in the world. He is a regular at the StarWorld Casino poker room in Macau as well as the Big Game in Bobby’s Room in Las Vegas. According to Gus himself, the Macau game is often $1,300/$2,600 NLHE, with a straddle and usually very deep stacks around the table. It is not uncommon for pots in the game to reach as much as $5 million.

Hansen has been a regular on televised high stakes games as well, including High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. In one of the most entertaining hands played on High Stakes Poker, Hansen won a pot worth more than $575,000 when his quad fives beat Daniel Negreanu’s sixes full on a final board of 9c 6d 5h 5s 8s. It was, to that point, the biggest pot in the history of High Stakes Poker. Hansen may be a big winner in the live games, but the data shows that his online results have been a different story.

As of May 2014, Hansen is reportedly down almost $3 million for the year and almost $18 million lifetime at Full Tilt Poker. His “Gus Hansen” screen name was established when he signed on as a Full Tilt Pro during the mid-2000s and he’s played around 1.4 million hands on the account since then. Most of his online losses are recent; $14.6 million of the losses have occurred since FTP’s 2012 relaunch. $18 million is a lot of money, but it seems Hansen must be making up for his online losses elsewhere, in live cash games or through his financial interests away from the tables.

Some porn star from the 70's just sat down in the big game at Bellagio. Never seen him before. Anyone? pic.twitter.com/rUPHLd7oDb

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) August 6, 2016

Investments and Endorsements and Other Ventures

Hansen is the author of a book, Every Hand Revealed, in which he recounts every hand that he played in the 2007 Aussie Millions Main Event. He was a co-founder of the website pokerchamps.com, which was launched in 2003 and sold to Betfair only two years later for more than $15 million. It is not clear how much money Hansen made on the sale. He has also invested in his own poker website, theplayr.com, and his own internet channel, GusHansenTV.

Hansen was one of only a few Full Tilt Pros to come out of the Black Friday shutdown clean. He apparently had not taken any loans and did not owe any money to the company, unlike many of his colleagues. He was the first player signed-on to endorse the new Full Tilt when the site relaunched in 2012 and he remains one of the best-known players associated with the site. It is unknown how much money he makes from his FTP deal, but that sponsorship money, along with wins in big tournaments and cash games, should keep Gus Hansen from going broke for a long time.