NFL Great Richard Seymour Wins WSOP Tournament For Circuit Ring, $106K Payday
Three-time Super Bowl champ instantly takes his place among top celeb poker wins
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Richard Seymour retired from the NFL 13 years ago. But his competitive juices never stopped flowing — and poker quickly became his outlet for them.
On Monday at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina, Seymour, 46, scored the first major tournament win of his poker career, taking down a $2,200 buy-in World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOP-C) no-limit hold’em tourney, topping a field of 234 players to earn a $106,577 payout.
It was not the biggest financial score of Seymour’s amateur poker-playing career; in 2018, he won $376,360 in a $25,000 buy-in event in the Bahamas with a third-place finish. But Monday’s win was only Seymour’s second time crossing into six figures and it brings his total tournament earnings to about $980,000.
That includes two deep runs in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event. Seymour finished 131st in 2019 for $59,295 and 284th in 2023 for $50,900.
The WSOP-C awards gold rings to its winners, so Seymour has added one of those to a collection of three Super Bowl rings, won as a defensive end for the New England Patriots at the conclusions of the 2001, 2003, and 2004 seasons. He played eight years in New England and four for the Oakland Raiders, and was elected in 2022 to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
On Monday at Harrah’s Cherokee, Seymour outlasted fellow American Bradley Butcher in heads-up play. Butcher’s payout for second place was $71,039.
Celebrity poker showdown
Countless celebrities from outside the poker world have tried their hand at the game over the years, though few have managed a tournament win as noteworthy as Seymour’s.
One exception is Alejandro Andres Lococo, better known as “Papo MC,” a rapper from Argentina. At the WSOP Paradise series in 2024, he won the Triton Million bracelet event, a “super high roller” tournament with a $500,000 price tag that awarded the winner a shade over $12 million.
For historical significance, nothing can top actress Jennifer Tilly winning the WSOP’s $1,000 ladies-only event in 2005 at the height of the poker boom, emerging from a field of 601 players to capture the gold bracelet and $158,335. Some 20 years later, Tilly has amassed just over $1 million in career tournament earnings.
Definitions of “celebrity” may vary, but other notables with more than $1 million in tournament winnings include Rick Salomon (of Paris Hilton sex tape and Pamela Anderson marriage fame), Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan, French rapper/producer/actor Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes, and French singer/songwriter/actor Patrick Bruel.
The closest NFL star to Seymour is still-active 39-year-old Arizona Cardinals defensive end Calais Campbell, whose poker tournament winnings total $123,135.
