Justin Bonomo is the current number two rated poker player, having won $49,128,105 to date during his poker career. The highest amount won by Justin Bonomo on any one single tournament was $10,000,000. He is an American citizen and currently resides in Vancouver in Canada. Daniel Negreanu. Justin Bonomo is a professional poker player currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is also a well-recognized online player known by his alias “ZeeJustin”. From 2008 to 2010 Bonomo was member of the Bodog Poker online poker site's team pro.

The “High Roller reg” from the United States won recently the Super High Roller Bowl for $5,000,000 and became third on the All Time Money list. Not everything was going that excellent during his entire diverse career, though.

Cheater

Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo was banned on PartyPoker in 2006 after he won a tournament (with 6-digit score) entering it using six accounts at the same time. The winnings were, obviously, confiscated and it wasn’t the last time Bonomo get caught cheating. In the same year, PokerStars Manager announced on TwoPlusTwo that Justin was multi-accounting on their site as well.

His story became one of the most talked-about and heated dialogues to have ever taken place in the online poker community. There was a gigantic discussion on forum involving thousands of posts.

It didn’t stop him on a path to success. After few months break, he returned to the game, just after he turned 21. He was playing exclusively live slowly adding to his reputation of being a solid tournament player. In December, ZeeJustin qualified to four final tables on Five Diamond Poker Classic festival and he finished on “TV-bubble” (7^th) in WPT tournament.

Soon, he became a player of Team Bodog. After his reputation started to grow, PokerStars decided to unban him in April 2009. His story became a hot topic on forums again, but the owners of major world’s poker room didn’t decide to change their decision.

High stakes adventure

ZeeJustin returned to playing on PokerStars. He was not only the tournament player, but high stakes cash games regular on Stars and FTP as well. He was playing at the highest stakes against the biggest stars such as Isildur1 or jungleman12.

One of his best friends is Isaac Haxton, who helped him hugely to improve his game and compete with the best in the world. In 2012 Justin said in the interview for HighStakesDB that Isaac was the toughest opponent he has ever faced, but he added that he was not objective in his opinion because Isaac is his friend. “Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky is the number two”, he said.

Moving outside of US

Haxton is the player with whom Bonomo moved to Malta after Black Friday. Justin had a lot of money frozen in FTP’s account. “If FTP repays, my net worth instantly doubles, so yes, I have quite a bit on there.” – he said.

Success in tournaments

At that time, he had a lot of cashes in WSOP, but he still had to wait for his first bracelet. In 2014, he topped a field of 1,587 in the $1,500 6-max NLHE event, earning his coveted piece of jewelry along with the $449,980 first-place prize.

His tournament career started a lot earlier though. In January 2005 he cashed PCA Main Event on 30^th place. Month later he became the youngest player in the history that was featured on the TV table (being only 19) – he was 4^th in the €2,000 EPT tournament in Deauville. One of the turning points in his poker adventure was winning €100,000 Super High Roller 8-Max on EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2012 for $2,165,217. Besides this score and winning two editions of Super High Roller Bowl in 2018, he had two scores over $1 million: second place in $5,300 NLHE Championship Event during Hard Rock Poker Open Hollywood for $1,163,500 and recently second place in $100,000 Super High Roller at PCA 2018 for $1,077,800.

The beginnings

How it all started? Bonomo was highly ranked Magic the Gathering player and when he discovered poker, he was still underaged.

I started playing $0.50/$1 limit hold’em on Paradise Poker just like everyone else that played back in 2002. My first deposit was thanks to my EverQuest character that I sold via PayPal for $500.

He had tough moments in his career as almost every poker player.

I had a very big downswing in late 2009. My confidence was at a high after rising through the HUNL stakes super quickly. I was playing the best players in the world and ran over a million below all-in EV. It was humbling going from $10/$20 to $200/$400, and then at $50/$100 losing to some of the very same players that I had recently built my bankroll off of. I had become complacent with my game while theirs’ were evolving to beat mine. That was a huge mistake on my part compounded by the run bad.

In the beginning he was playing Limit Hold’em, online tournaments and SNGs, but soon he discovered that NLHE is his favourite variant of poker. He was trying other formats as well, for example $50k H.O.R.S.E events at the WSOP and 2-7 Triple Draw event where he was close to winning a bracelet, however his biggest scores come from NLHE games.

Unbelievable run

Recently, after taking down Super High Roller Bowl he won two other High Rollers (both with $25k buy-in) in Aria casino! He informed poker community about it on Twitter.

Ok so you might not believe this, but I just won the Aria $25k high roller again. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.

Here is the list of his High Roller biggest scores this year:

The future

32-year-old Justin Bonomo has been known in the poker community for many years. After his 17-year adventure with poker, he starts finally to become a super-star. He said nothing changed drastically in his game recently; he just started to win all-ins he couldn’t win before. Besides this, after cheating scandal, he started showing his lighter sides, being active in donating to charities. We are very curious how his future is going to look like and how much strength he is going to show in 2018 and especially in World Series of Poker. Will he capture his second bracelet?

Poker has a new all-time money leader and his name is Justin Bonomo.

Late in the evening on Tuesday, Bonomo secured his biggest payday to date by winning the $1 million buy-in The Big One for One Drop event. The $10 million first-place prize catapulted Bonomo ahead of Daniel Negreanu to sit on top of the poker world’s most-watched list–all-time tournament earnings.

Bonomo now lays claim to $42,979,591 in lifetime live tournament earnings. Negreanu has $39,656,196.

Negreanu didn’t seem to mind relinquishing the top spot. In response to the commentary on the broadcast, he Tweeted:

@phil_hellmuth@lonmceachern@NormanChad WRONG! It would be nice to be relieved of the pressure of feeling like I need to play all these events. It’s inevitable I’d be passed with my limited schedule. Might as well be now!

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) July 18, 2018

It was an emotional victory for Bonomo. When asked about his emotional state on the ESPN broadcast, Bonomo said:

“Disbelief. Happiness. All over the place. The adrenaline has been going through me like crazy.”

The Big One for One Drop

The third installment of the Big One for One Drop played out in Las Vegas, Nevada. A total of 27 players put up $1 million to play with the best of the best.

This year the tournament welcome far fewer players then it had in years past. In 2012, 48 players wrote a big check, and in 2014, 42 players signed on the dotted line.

The Big One for One Drop is unique in that there is no rake or fees to play. Guy Laliberté worked with Caesars and the World Series of Poker to bring a charity tournament unlike any other to the poker stage. A portion of each buy-in ($80,000) goes to the One Drop Foundation, which brings access to safe drinking water to underserved communities around the world.

The list of players is a combination of accomplished “recreational” players and a list of who’s who in poker. The final table reflected that formula.

Day 3 began with six players, only five of which would make the money.

David Einhorn, a hedge fund manager with $5,154,048 in live tournament winnings, was the unfortunate soul eliminated in sixth place. It’s always sad to see Einhorn get knocked out of a tournament because he donates all of his winnings to charity.

Bonomo was responsible for the elimination and lamented about it to WSOP.com.

“To be totally honest, I almost feel guilty for knocking out David Einhorn. I will give a lot to charity, but I’m not as well off as him to give it all to charity. It’s an honor to be part of the money that’s donated to One Drop.”

The Big One for One Drop final table results:

1st: Justin Bonomo ($10,000,000)
2nd: Fedor Holz ($6,000,000)
3rd: Dan Smith ($4,000,000)
4th: Rick Salomon ($2,840,000)
5th: Byron Kaverman ($2,000,000)

Bonomo’s heater keeps getting hotter

To say Bonomo is having a great year is the understatement of the century.

He has had four seven-, 11 six-, and seven five-figure scores. That is a lot of scores for seven months of poker. Not to mention, he logged 20 final tables, including nine first-, one second-, and two third-place finishes.

To be fair, Bonomo limits his play to mostly high-rollers which produce smaller fields. In the end, though, a heater is a heater.

To put his results in perspective, we looked at the earnings of the last three GPI players of the year. Bonomo has earned more in the first seven months of the year, then each of the three players did in their lifetime:

• Adrian Mateos (2017) – $15,603,074
• David Peters (2016) – $21,679,128
• Byron Kaverman (2015) – $14,501,379

Calling his results a heater downplays the work Bonomo puts into his game and the discipline he has to show up and play even after winning life-changing money several times over.

Bonomo doesn’t take this year’s stellar results for granted. He is still in study mode.

“It’s more money than I ever played for in my life, so I buckled down,” Bonomo said about preparing for the One Drop. “I studied. I took the day off the day before and just studied all day. Meditation every single day. I took this as seriously as I possibly could.”

About the money

The amount of money a poker player wins can be deceiving and not at all telling about their financial situation. Players often sell portions of their actions to limit their liability. Bonomo is no different. He sold pieces of his One Drop action to friends and through the website YouStake. When asked about selling a percentage, he said:

“Because of the wins this year, I absolutely do get to take bigger pieces of myself. This was a million-dollar buy-in, so I was not able to put up anywhere close to even half the money myself. It honestly made this even more special; I get to share this win with literally hundreds of people, because I sold action on the internet, as well. Also, some of my closest friends in the world who helped me prepare for this tournament [had pieces], and I’m so happy to give back to them.”

In February, after winning US Poker Open Event #1 – $10,000 + 500 No Limit Hold’em, Bonomo tweeted:

Poker Bookstore

Does anybody know if the Twilight Zone episode with the gambler who can’t lose has a happy ending? Asking for a friend

— Bonologic (@JustinBonomo) February 4, 2018

Poker Bonuses

Apparently, the answer is yes. At least for now.