The Indian poker scene has grown considerably especially over the last few years, producing some world class poker players. Let us take a look at the top 5 Indian poker players on India’s all-time money list in 2025.
Santhosh Suvarna #1
With $15,028,525 in live earnings, Santhosh Suvarna is the current leader for Indian poker players in Hendon Mob winnings. He notched up some impressive cashes in 2024 to surpass Vivek Rajkumar and take the top spot on India’s All-Time Money List. His biggest achievement of the year came at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) where he won the Super High Roller for his second WSOP gold bracelet and career-best score of $ 5,415,152, the biggest live score by an Indian in the live poker history.
Just a few days after his historic $250K Super High Roller win, Suvarna made waves in Event #79: $50,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha, finishing 5th for $503,085, the second biggest score by an Indian at the WSOP 2024. His momentum continued with several final table finishes through the year, including an 8th place for a hefty $209,420 at the WSOP Paradise.
Born and brought up in Mangalore, Karnataka, Santhosh Suvarna is a successful businessman and high-stakes poker pro who started playing poker in 2014 with focus on cash games initially. He later forayed into live poker tournaments. His first live tournament cash came in 2017 for a 7th place for INR 4,52,000 in the DPT High Roller and since then he has won several prestigious live titles, amassing a staggering $15,028,525 in live cashes.
Vivek Rajkumar #2
The current #2 on the India all-time money list is the veteran Vivek Rajkumar with over $8 million in live poker tournament earnings. Born in India and raised in Singapore, Rajkumar, who is now living in the United States, was very active in the live poker world from 2006 to 2011. After building his reputation as a fearless online MTT crusher, he forayed into live arena. His first trip to the WSOP in 2007 saw him notch up an impressive 5 cashes, including a sixth-place finish in a $3,000 Limit Hold’em event. In February 2008, Rajkumar took down a $2,595 buy-in event at the L.A. Poker Classic for $113k – his first six-figure score. He then became a WPT champion after winning the WPT Borgata Open Open in Atlantic City for $1,424,500.
His career-best live poker score came in August 2019 when he banked $3,652,345 for a fifth-place in the £1,050,000 Triton Million for Charity event in London. Since then, he is no longer active in live poker tournament space as we can’t see his results from live poker tournaments on the Hendon Mob data after 2019.
Nipun Java #3
Nipun Java is one of the veteran poker pros from India. Currently ranked #2 on India All-Time Money List, he has over $3,106,478 in live earnings and $1,068,507 in online winnings. Crushing the live circuit since 2009, he has won several bracelet events, including the WSOP 2017 Tag Team Event where he teamed up with Aditya Sushant to win the bracelet for India.
Nipun Java is an engineer by qualification. He pursued electronic engineering at NSIT, Delhi, and later moved to Los Angeles in the US. He started playing poker online and after some success on the virtual felts, he then turned into a full-time poker pro. Since then, there has been no looking back as he has cashed and won several prestigious live titles, amassing over $3 million in live cashes and carving a place among the Indian poker elites.
Ankit Ahuja #4
A former tech consultant for PokerStars, Ankit Ahuja is an Indian poker pro with close to $3 million in live tournament earnings. Currently ranked #4 on India All-Time Money list, Ahuja first caught the attention in 2019 when he won the $1,100 NLH MonsterStack DeepStack Championship Poker Series for $330,134.
Ahuja’s biggest live cash game was in 2023 when he won the $1,100 Eureka Main Event at European Poker Tour Cyprus for $362,365. He also made a splash at the EPT Main Event in August 2023, placing 5th for €177,810 ($193,412). His most recent cash came in a WPT World Championship Pot Limit Omaha event where he finished in 7th place, earning $ 11,870. With over 10 live titles and close to $3 million, he is one of the finest pros in the Indian poker scene today.
Abhinav Iyer #5
A Mumbai-based poker pro, Abhinav Iyer is a prominent figure in the Indian poker fraternity, who shot into fame by winning the first solo WSOP bracelet for India during the 2019 WSOP in Las Vegas. He triumphed in the WSOP Closer event, winning $565,346 – his career-best score to date.
Iyer became known in the live poker arena in 2014 after cashing in a few low-stakes events in Melbourne, Australia. Since then, he has cashed several prestigious domestic events like DPT, BPT, IPC and international events such as WSOP, APT, APPT, WPT, and EPT, accumulating over $2 million in live earnings to take 5th spot on India’s all-time money list.
Other Prominent Poker Pros On India’s All-Time Money Leaderboard
The other prominent pros ranking among top 10 on India’s All-Time Money List include Aditya Agarwal,the poker pioneer with $ 1,788,338 in live earnings who won his first gold bracelet for winning the 2024 WSOP $1K NLH Freezeout, and Kartik Ved, another WSOP bracelet winner with $ 1,554,705 in live earnings. Mumbai pro Nishant Sharma, who made history by winning three consecutive Poker Dream Main Event titles in 2024, ranks 8th with $ 1,430,995. The 9th and 10th places on the India All-Time Money leaderboard are held by Raghav Bansal and Kunal Patni with $1,192,715 and $ 1,191,124 in live tournament earnings respectively.
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