Who Are the Snooker Pros That Have Won Big Playing Poker?

by Roy Brindley 07.08.2026

Top-drawer British sportspeople who have excelled in more than one sport may not be commonplace, but they do exist. Prime examples include England cricket legend Ian Botham, who also played professional football for Scunthorpe United, and current darts star Gerwyn Price, who played under-19 international rugby for Wales.

Snooker legend Jimmy White won a six-figure sum playing cards during poker’s boom years. © Getty Images

Swapping Green Baize for Green Felt and Big Money

Snooker is a sport that has seen its athletes not only compete but also excel in a different type of skill-based competition, poker. Remarkably, some of snooker’s best pros have matched and, in some cases, exceeded their best single-event snooker winnings in a poker tournament.

Join us as we look at the top snooker pros who swapped green baize for green felt and came out winners.

Steve Davis the All-Round Star Player

28 ranking tournament victories, six world championships, 18 million television viewers watching his loss to Dennis Taylor in the 1985 World Championship, combined to make Steve Davis a household name. He received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 1988 and, in later years, appeared in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!

A complex character with multiple interests and skills, Davis served as the President of the British Chess Federation, has penned cookbooks, and is an active DJ. However, when televised poker emerged in the UK in the late 1990s, he embraced the game.

Such was his fascination; in the early 2000s he would play embryonic online poker backstage at snooker tournaments. His new hobby generated much interest amongst fellow pros. This enthusiasm delighted Barry Hearn, his manager and owner of Matchroom Sport, who was embarking on an assault on televised poker.

Matchroom created the Sky Sports televised ‘Poker Million’, which, by series two, had become a six-seater shootout-format competition. Davis played in this second edition, titled ‘The Poker Million Masters’ in 2003 and the snooker legend finished fifth, winning $30,000.

Davis would go on to play more made-for-television events with varying success, and, outside of the UK, he made visits to the World Series of Poker, where he finished in the money in the 2006 and 2008 Main Events.

Jimmy White Swaps Second for First

Davis and fellow snooker pro Jimmy White were never the best of friends. It was Davis who normally came out ahead when they met on the big stage at the biggest events – such as the 1984 World Championship and the 1987 UK Championship.

White, adored by fans, had a reputation as a nearly-man, and famously finished runner-up in the World Championship six times without winning the title. His pay cheque for his final Crucible appearance was £110,000.

In 2003 Jimmy White won more money in winning the 'Poker Million – The Masters' than he did in any individual snooker tournament ever. pic.twitter.com/iBq2GjGt34

— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@BettingSitesCom) March 20, 2022

In 2003’s ‘Poker Million Masters’ White almost replicated that financial payday by pocketing $150,000. Furthermore, he had the satisfaction of lifting the winner’s trophy at a table of players that included his old foe, Steve Davis, and Brighton & Hove Albion owner, Tony Bloom.

Stevens Won More Playing Poker Than Snooker!

Like Jimmy White, Stevens has never won a world title, but he finished runner-up in 2000 and again in 2005, when he earned £125,000 for his efforts. Success in the 2003 UK Championship had previously given him a £84,500 payday, and he was once ranked world number four.

Those figures were dwarfed in 2024, when the Welshman, then 27, won a Matchroom Sport made-for-TV event titled the Pacific Poker UK Open. His prize for winning his debut poker tournament, just 18 months after learning to play, was $500,000!

Stevens has not won a ranking snooker tournament since this six-figure payday, and his last recorded poker results came in 2007 when he collected £950 for finishing 20th in a £500-entry tournament in Blackpool.

Hendry Is a Great – But Not at Poker

Stephen Hendry, amongst the all-time greats alongside names such as Steve Davis and Ronnie O’Sullivan, is another who used his celebrity status to gain entry into significant poker tournaments.

In 2003, he played in the Celebrity Poker Club, a Channel 4 televised event produced by the makers of Late Night Poker. He proceeded to earn a place in the final of the shootout event, where the Scotsman ultimately finished fifth behind Sir Clive Sinclair and racing pundit John McCririck, earning $500.

A sponsorship deal with Betfred sportsbook saw Hendry contest the Main Event of the 2005 World Series of Poker, albeit he lasted just three hours, running his ‘over-pair’ into ‘quad-2s’. That same year, he told the press, “When you get to a snooker tournament these days, it’s not a practice table the players want first, it’s a poker table!”

Mark Williams Is the Best?

Unlike many of his counterparts, Mark Williams’ poker baptism came in a traditional event, the 2003 Irish Winter Festival, against a field of seasoned players. Despite his inexperience, the then-reigning world snooker champion outlasted 118 rivals to reach the final table and finish seventh.

The following year, the class of ‘92 player had a deep run in the Celeb Poker UK Challenge in Brighton, where he finished 12th and also in a side-event at the 2004 European Poker Tour Dublin leg.

Despite these impressive performances in multi-player tournaments, Williams’ official poker career winnings total less than £10,000 and are dwarfed by those of fellow snooker players; nevertheless, many believe he is the best poker player on the snooker tour.

Crafty Ken Is Still Doing It

The ‘Darling of Dublin’, who famously won the World Snooker Championship in 1997, had a great introduction to poker. Cutting his poker teeth in Dublin’s Merrion Casino, he immediately put his new skills to work by winning 2007’s Matchroom Sports-produced and televised Partypoker Sports Stars Challenge II.

2007 was a good year for the affable Irishman, as he also won €10,800 for finishing fifth in a 114-player tournament in Cork. In his day job, he won the famous Pot Black competition.

Five years later, Doherty went deep in a WPT feature event in Dublin, finishing 14th, collecting €8,520. Tournament appearances – in snooker and poker – have become sporadic since. Still, the popular television pundit is a regular player and winner in friendly poker cash games in his own Dublin snooker academy.

Bill, Alex and Elliot Earn Honourable Mentions

Supersized cue man, Bill Werbeniuk, who died in 2003, regularly spoke of his time gambling and hustling around pool halls in his native Canada, once explaining how he missed “the challenge of living off poker.”

The player, famed for drinking pints when playing snooker, missed the poker boom that made some of his fellow snooker pros rich. However, in the 2007 publication Poker’s Strangest Hands, he is quoted as saying, “He was the worst player you could ever imagine,” when referring to his days playing poker with former World Snooker Champion Alex Higgins.

“It was the closest I ever got to stealing,” he said of Higgins. I shudder to think how much money I took off him.” Higgins never played in a made-for-television poker tournament, but he did play a side event at the 2006 Irish Poker Championship in Dublin, which attracted much interest from local news outlets.

Another established snooker pro with a poker background is Elliot Slessor. The Gateshead native worked as a poker dealer and croupier to make ends meet before his snooker career took off. A keen player himself, Slessor has had numerous ‘cashes’ in weekly Newcastle tournaments with entry fees ranging from £25 to £200.