12 Poker Fun Facts You Didn’t Know

In a game like poker with such a rich history and so many classic stories and myths, there’s tons of interesting facts and tid-bits. Next time you sit down at the poker table, bust out some of these poker fun facts! These are our top 12 interesting poker fun facts. 1-When poker first started in the American South, players gambled for gold nuggets, dust, and coins. Eventually saloons invented chips to provide a standard unit. 2-Poker was originally played with 20 cards. The 52 card deck came about so that more people could play. 3-The longest ever continuous poker game lasted for eight years, five months, and three days at the Birdcage Theater in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881. 4-The longest ever continuous poker session by one player was Phil Laak's 2010 marathon session of 115 hours straight at the Bellagio. 5-Poker player Andrei Karpov bet and lost his wife in a poker game. She willingly left him for the winner anyway. 6-In the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, nobody has ever won the title with pocket aces. However, two runner-ups lost the final hand when their aces got cracked. 7-President Warren G. Harding lost all the White House china to General Douglas MacArthur’s wife, Louise, in a poker game. 8-President Richard Nixon was also an avid poker player. He purportedly used his poker winnings to fund his presidential campaign. 9-The world’s largest ever poker tournament was an online event with 253,692 players. An Austrian man won the whole thing after playing 470 hands. 10-Only four players have won back-to-back WSOP Main Event titles: Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, and Johnny Chan. 11-Poker Legend Phil Hellmuth holds the record for most WSOP bracelets: 16! 12-The biggest ever payout from a single poker tournament went to beloved pro Antonio Esfandiari after his 2012 win of The Big One for One Drop. He took home nearly $18.35 million!