Top 10 poker moments of 2025

Another great year for poker is behind us, and this one created some truly memorable moments, none of which can compare to Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi taking home the biggest prize in all of poker, the WSOP Main Event bracelet.

Other top poker players had their moments in the spotlight, including Alan Keating, Shaun Deeb, and Martin Kabrhel, while Leo Margets made history for the ladies in the Main Event.

The year was riddled with stories of heroes and villains alike, and we decided to take a look back and sum it all up in one place.

These are the top 10 moments that marked the year and made 2025 one for the poker history books.

10. Martin Kabrhel wins two World Series bracelets
Along with Will Kassouf, the Czech high roller Martin Kabrhel was the other big troublemaker at this year’s WSOP.

Martin dominated the headlines for his shenanigans and long tanking, but unlike Kassouf, he backed his tricks up with some actual results.

In Las Vegas, Martin took down the $1,000 Mini Main Event, beating 10,794 runners and winning a massive $843,140 in the process, along with the gold bracelet.

Martin added another bracelet a few months later in his home country of the Czech Republic, when he took down the $10,000 PLO Mystery Bounty event at the WSOPE.

At the time of writing, Kabrhel is doing what he does best at WSOP Paradise, where he already came third in the $125k High Roller for over $1.3 million, and is running deep in the $25k Super Main Event.

2025 was the year of Martin Kabrhel, and it’s more than likely that we will be seeing much more of the quirky Czech in the next couple of years.

9. Mike Matusow "cracks down" on High Rollers
In July this year, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow caused quite a stir when he called out the high-stakes tournament players and called the entire high roller scene a mirage.

Matusow claimed that the vast majority of high-roller players were backed or sold on most of their action, and that most of them were in deep makeup.

He further claimed that none of the players in those events were actual winners and that the entire thing was fake, which raised a few eyebrows.

Some of the players who actually play in these tournaments, including Daniel Negreanu, spoke up in order to set the record straight.

While they admitted there was backing and action selling going on, they also broke down the numbers and proved that “The Mouth” wasn’t exactly right in everything he claimed.

Once again, Mike was caught going a little overboard with his commentary, although his claims were at least partially true this time around.

8. NBA superstars prosecuted for rigged poker games
In October 2025, one of the biggest poker scandals of all time made all the news, as a number of NBA superstars were indicted for running rigged poker games and fixing sports matches.

The indictment included NBA legends like Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones, and Terry Rozier, all of whom were arrested as part of an FBI operation.

A joint Organized Crime Task Force tracked their illegal activities back to 2023, and alleged the group was running an organized network together with members of famous organized crime families, such as Gambinos and Bonnanos.

A total of 31 defendants were charged with running rigged high-stakes poker games, in which modified shuffling machines and x-ray machines were used to cheat players out of at least $7 million.

The case is likely to drag on for a couple of years, but the indictment itself shed some light on the fact that even high-stakes games stacked with celebrities are not immune to cheating.

7. Will Kassouf gets banned from the WSOP
The 2025 WSOP was one of the most entertaining we have seen in a while, and one of the central figures of the entertainment was Will Kassouf.

Kassouf, who made a name for himself back in 2016, when he nearly made the Main Event final table, was once again running deep in the biggest poker tournament in the world.

Kassouf once again applied ample “speech play” and other shenanigans throughout his performance, and it left a bad taste in many of his opponents’ mouths.

By the time it was all said and done, Kassouf was eliminated in 33rd place, good for $300,000. In addition to the prize money, he was also banned from the Caesars premises that hosted the event.

Whether the ban will still be active by the time the 2026 WSOP rolls around remains to be seen, but Will Kassouf being escorted out of the casino by security guards was one of the most memorable poker moments of 2025.

6. Club WPT Gold launches in the US
Following a glamorous announcement at the 2024 WPT World Championship in Las Vegas, which included a huge $5,000,000 freeroll tournament, Club WPT Gold opened its doors to American customers in early 2025.

The new sweepstakes poker site quickly got the endorsement of Doug Polk, one of the biggest content creators in the poker space, along with a variety of other WPT ambassadors.

Within weeks, the site had more action than most competitors, and over the course of the year, improvements to the software led to an even greater engagement.

Club WPT Gold provided soft and technically legal poker games to millions of Americans who were starving for action, and it looks set to do so for years to come.

Legal troubles for sweepstakes gambling sites toned down the hype surrounding the site a bit over the last quarter of the year, but the operator pivoted from a sweepstakes model to a new blend of poker coaching and playing platform, which they hope will keep the platform operational nationwide for the foreseeable future.

5. Shaun Deeb wins the WSOP Player of the Year title
Michael Mizrachi won the Poker Players Championship and the Main Event, Benny Glaser won three WSOP bracelets, but it was another legend of the game who managed to score the WSOP POY title in 2025.

The legendary poker grinder that he is, Shaun Deeb secured the title by putting on a show throughout the summer. He won the $100,000 PLO High Roller and scored three more top-three finishes, enough to edge his competition and win the prestigious title for the second time in his career.

While the likes of Phil Hellmuth criticized the WSOP for not awarding the POY title to Mizrachi, Deeb won the competition fair and square, and more than earned the title that will likely land him in the Hall of Fame over the coming years.

4. Alan Keating dominates the HCL Million Dollar game
2025 simply wouldn’t have been the year it was for poker without Alan Keating, whose presence on and off the tables was impossible to ignore.

Keating’s year was full of swings, as we have grown accustomed to, but unlike previous years, this one saw him score a few massive wins.

The most memorable one came in the Hustler Casino Live Million Dollar Cash Game, which ran over three days in May. Keating won each day, taking home just shy of $2,000,000 in cash.

Alan faced off against the likes of Peter, Nik Airball, Texas Mike, Brandon Steven, and Stanley Tang, and came out well ahead of the pack in the year’s biggest cash game event.

He followed this up with another $1.8 million win in the Huslter Casino Live High Stakes Marathon, hosted in December, to close the year off on a high note.

Mr. Keating’s wins in 2025 were even more noteworthy if you consider his playing style, which has him constantly involved in huge pots with marginal cards, which he somehow turns into gold time and time again.

3. Leo Margets makes history for women in poker
The 2025 WSOP Main Event final table was a memorable affair for more than one reason. While Michael Mizrachi was the biggest star of the show in everyone’s eyes, another big story was unfolding simultaneously.

Spain’s Leo Margets was the last woman standing in the tournament, and the first female to make the Main Event final table in modern history, ever since Barbara Enright did it back in 1995.

Margets followed in the footsteps of Kristen Foxen, who fell just short of the final table in 2024, and actually made it into the elite nine, before falling short of glory and busting in 7th place.

While Leo wasn’t lucky enough to go all the way and actually win the WSOP Main Event, she once again proved that the ladies have a place among the best poker players in the world, and that gender has nothing to do with success in this game.

Margets had one of the most supportive rails in WSOP history, and her Main Event run was one of the biggest poker stories of the entire year.

2. Ossi Ketola plays multi-million dollar heads up matches on live stream
2025 was a year filled with high-stakes poker action, ranging from Triton Poker tournaments to high-stakes games on shows like Hustler Casino Live and Onyx Live.

It was the latter that brought us one of the biggest poker stories of the year, as a young businessman and eSports legend, Ossi “Monarch” Ketola, the owner of an innovative online casino that you can join with one of the casino promo codes, reshaped the meaning of “nosebleed stakes.”

In August this year, Onyx Live was hosting high-stakes cash games and tournaments in Cyprus, all streamed on its brand-new YouTube channel.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a live stream popped up, with Monarch playing Norwegian high-stakes player Kayhan Mokri for EUR 2,000,000, which seemed like an insane amount for a single heads-up sit and go match.

Morki won the match and had to leave, but Ketola found his next opponent in none other than Dan “Jungleman” Cates. Over a series of matches, Cates won over $15,000,000 in a span of 24 hours, easily breaking the record for the biggest monetary swing recorded in a televised poker game.

Ketola wasn’t done either, as he kept taking on opponents throughout 2025, playing the likes of Kayhan Mokri, Alex Foxen, Elias Talvitie, and Bjorn Li, among others.

Monarch had his ups and downs, but when all was said and done, he finished the year down more than $20,000,000 in televised games, which instantly made him the biggest loser in TV poker history, at least for the time being.

1. Michael Mizrachi wins the WSOP Main Event
The biggest poker story of 2025 was easily Michael "The Grinder" Micrachi’s dominant performance at this year’s WSOP in Las Vegas.

A member of "the old guard," Mizrachi was somewhat forgotten by poker fans, with younger, flashier poker celebrities taking the spotlight in recent years.

Never one to give up, Michael entered the 2025 WSOP with a desire to prove everyone wrong and show he still had what it takes to compete with the best, and he did just that.

His summer started off somewhat slow, but turned around in a big way when he won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, the most prestigious mixed game tournament in the world.

Yet, the moment that really left the poker world in awe came when Mizrachi put the final touches on his WSOP Main Event victory, which instantaneously cemented his name in the poker history books.

Not only was this one of the best performances seen at a WSOP festival ever, but it was one worthy of a Poker Hall of Fame induction. All members of the HOF agreed that Michael deserved a spot at the table, and a quick ceremony was put together to celebrate the occasion before everyone returned to the tables.

The Grinder proved that the old guard can still compete with the young guns, and even thrive in the ultra-competitive world of live tournament poker.

MICHAEL MIZRACHI WINS THE 2025 WORLD SERIES OF POKER MAIN EVENT TITLE AND ACHIEVES POKER IMMORTALITY

Having one of the most historic summers in WSOP history, read all about @TheGrinder44 win in the 2025 WSOP Main Event.

Link: https://t.co/6VpCcrztLp pic.twitter.com/48rfYqY1xA

— WSOP - World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 17, 2025