The world of women in poker is constantly evolving, with new stars emerging every week. During the summer of 2025, the spotlight turned to Dusti Smith—a name that quickly became famous. While Smith has been a fixture on the American poker circuit for over a decade, consistently notching up mini-cashes and deep runs, this summer marked a turning point in her career.
In 2025, Smith achieved her career-best score at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), finishing runner-up in the $2,000 no-limit hold’em event to Scott Bohlman for $290,588 and solidifying her reputation as a formidable competitor. Her momentum didn’t stop there: she made history by becoming the inaugural champion of the Wynn Poker Ladies High Roller event, a prestigious title that underscored her place among the elites in women’s poker.
Early Life and Introduction to Poker
There is limited publicly available information about Dusti Smith’s early life and how she was introduced to poker. However, based on her social media posts, it appears that her primary inspiration came from her father, Rex Smith. Rex participated in a few live poker tournaments and even cashed in some of them, he may have been the force who introduced Dusti to the game in her early age.
Dusti Smith’s Poker Career and Winnings
Smith’s first recorded tournament cash came in 2008 when she secured a podium finish at the WSOP Circuit New Orleans $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, earning $24,793. Her next significant result came in 2012, when she finished as runner-up in the Wynn Classic $1,000 NLH for $12,453.
Over the next few years, she continued to participate in various tournaments with growing success. In 2016, she cashed for $10,127 in the WPT Choctaw $3,500 Championship Event. The following year, she made a deep run in a WSOP Circuit $1,675 Main Event and collected $6,138.
Smith scored her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) cash in 2018, finishing in the money in the $565 NLH Colossus Event at the 49th WSOP for $909. That same year, she placed 43rd in the $888 NLH Crazy Eights event, collecting $14,804. Just a month later, she took down the WPT Choctaw Ladies $130 NLH Event for $3,380 and returned to run deep in the $3,500 WPT Choctaw Main Event, adding $9,160 to her earnings.
In 2021, she came close to her first WSOP bracelet with a 22nd-place finish in the $1,000 NLH Ladies Championship, earning $3,343.
The year 2022 marked another highlight in her career, with a win at the $500 NLH Bigger One Texas Card House Tournament for $20,205. She capped off that year by finishing 3rd in the WPT Ladies World Championship, taking home an impressive $51,538.
After a relatively quiet 2023, Smith made headlines again with a life-changing, six-figure score at the Leap Into Spring Series $1,100 Main Event, where she finished on the podium and earned $120,000. That same year, she finished 3rd in the WSOP Online $1,000 Mystery Bounty, adding another $23,050 to her growing resume.
2025: A Game-Changing Year For Dusti Smith
Smith entered 2025 with a few small cashes but soon turned the year into a defining chapter of her poker journey.
In June 2025, she achieved a career-best result by finishing second out of 1,692 players in WSOP Event #17: $2,000 NLH to take home $299,588.
Remarkably, just a day after this massive score, Smith entered the inaugural $3,000 Wynn Poker Ladies High Roller at the Wynn Summer Classic. She battled through a competitive field of 76 entrants to emerge as the event’s first-ever champion, claiming a $61,335 payout along with the prestigious Wynn Poker trophy.
With her latest cashes at the Wynn Summer Classic, and the 2025 WSOP, Dusti Smith pushed her lifetime poker earnings past $1 million, making her a force in the live poker arena.
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