Players
 Alan Goehring
Allen Cunningham
Amarillo Slim
Amir Vahedi
Andy Black
Andy Bloch
Annie Duke
Antonio Esfandiari
Barbara Enright
Barney Boatman
Barry Greenstein
Barry Shulman
Carlos Mortensen
Chip Jett
Chip Reese
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson
Chris Bigler
Chris Karagulleyan
Chris Moneymaker
Clonie Gowen
Cyndi Violette
Dan Harrington
Daniel Negreanu
Dave "Devilfish" Ulliot
David Benyamine
David Chiu
David Colclough
David Pham
David Williams
Dewey Tomko
Doyle Brunson
Dutch Boyd
Erick Lindgren
Erik Seidel
Evelyn Ng
Garry Bush
Greg Raymer
Gus Hansen
Hasan Habib
Hon Le
Howard Lederer
Hoyt Corkins
Huck Seed
Humberto Brenes
Jennifer Harman
Joe Beevers
John Bonetti
John Cernuto
John Hennigan
John Juanda
Johnny Chan
Jose Rosenkrantz
Joseph Hachem
Josh Arieh
Juha Helppi
Julian Gardner
Kassem "Freddy" Deeb
Kathy Liebert
Kenna James
Kirill Gerasimov
Layne Flack
Marcel Luske
Mark Seif
Martin de Knijff
Maureen Feduniak
Mel Judah
Men Nguyen
Mike Matosow
Paul Darden
Paul Magriel
Paul Phillips
Phil Gordon
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Ivey
Phil Laak
Robert Varkonyi
Ron Rose
Ross Boatman
Russell Rosenblum
Sam Grizzle
Sammy Farha
Scott Fischman
Scotty Nguyen
Stu Ungar
T.J. Cloutier
Ted Forrest
Todd Brunson
Tony D
Tony Ma
Poker Personalities
Benny Binion
Mike Sexton
Norman Chad
Shana Hiatt
Vince Van Patten
Wild Bill Hickok
WPT Amateurs
James Tippin
Celebrities
Ben Affleck
Cindy Margolis
James Woods
Jennifer Tilly
Jerry Buss
Norm MacDonald
Shannon Elizabeth
Tobey Maguire
Wil Wheaton
Fictional Players
Cincinnati Kid
KGB
Mike McDermott
Worm
Poker Authors
Andy Glazer
David Sklansky
James McManus
Lou Krieger
Mike Caro
Tom McEvoy
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Poker Player Profiles
Benny Binion
Most people know of Benny Binnion because the World Series of Poker is held at the casino he owned, but his accomplishments were much greater than just this - even though he never attended any school of any sort.. Big time gambling began in Las Vegas with the opening of Binion's Horseshoe casino in 1951.
At 18, while living in Texas, he was operating an illegal numbers game. After some very violent experiences where he got shot, he decided to move to Las Vegas. Benny Binion arrived in Las Vegas from Texas in 1946 and in 1951 he opened the Horseshoe. He opened the Horseshoe four years later and changed the face of gambling forever. Binion was famous for taking the biggest action in town and at the opening of his casino his limits were easily above anything else. Benny Binion believed that gamers should not be limited in the amount they were willing to wager; if they were willing to put it to chance, the house should cover it. His casino was also one of the first places to comp small-time gamblers.
Two years after opening, Binion was forced to sell controlling interests to pay the legal costs of defending himself against racket charges back in Texas and an unsuccessful attempt to avoid prison on income tax charges. He served 3½ years in Leavenworth Penitentiary. In 1964 the family regained control of the Horseshoe but Benny Binion was never allowed to hold a gaming license again.
Binion was good at attracting gamblers as opposed to people who wanted entertainment. In the 1970s he invented the gambling tournament. The World Series of Poker was begun by Tom Morehead of the Riverside Casino in Reno who ran it as an invitational but Benny took it over and invented the now global idea of increasing antes to produce a winner in a short time period. Benny Binion died of heart failure on Christmas Day, 1989. But his $10,000 World Series of Poker event has grown from the 8 people who played in 1972 where Amarillo Slim was the winner, to 2,576 players in the year 2004.
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