Meet World-Famous Poker Pro Daniel Cates

On the rich green felt of the poker table, every move matters. Every gesture is a potential tell. Every turn is a calculation. Every card flip is a make-or-break moment. Needless to say, it’s not for the faint of heart — just ask Daniel Cates.

A bona fide legend, Daniel is widely seen as one of the most talented and successful poker players of all time. With unshakeable focus and a devil-may-care attitude, he’s conquered some of the world’s most elite tables and carved out his own space among the best of the best.

But who was he before becoming a multimillion-dollar-winning poker icon? A boy from humble beginnings and a love of games.

Background: Making the Most of a Game-Playing Passion

Born and raised in Bowie, Maryland, Daniel realized from a young age that his interests were different from other kids his age. Because of that, he spent much of his childhood on his own. When he was six years old, Daniel discovered a new passion: video games. Soon, he became obsessed with games like Command and Conquer and Minesweeper.

Even as he got older and became more social, Daniel’s love of games never faded; if anything, it expanded, especially when he was 17 and discovered the game of poker.

According to Daniel, his fascination with poker didn’t stem from the fact that it was simply a game — it was a game you could play for money.

“I had heard from various people how much the 9-5 job sucked…and along came poker, which was a game you could play for money,” he says. “So I thought, ‘Okay, well, if I can get good at that…then I can just be free.’”

But the road to freedom wasn’t as straight as Daniel had expected.

“I found some people in the local neighborhood, but they were much better than me, and I lost $3,000 when I was 17, which was most of my money,” he told CNBC in 2022. “So my parents locked my account. And I had to get a day job at McDonald’s for a month to make some money.”

Over the next couple of years, Daniel worked tirelessly to hone his craft, mastering key poker skills like bluffing and reading his opponents. Soon enough, it started to pay off…literally.

Career: From Shaky Beginnings to Millions in Winnings

By the time he was 19, Daniel had become a self-made millionaire by playing poker. In those early years, Daniel earned most of his money playing online. But for him, the online stage wasn’t enough. He wanted to dominate in-person tournaments, confront his opponents head-on, and take home even bigger prizes.

It was this insatiable hunger that drove Daniel to drop out of his economics course at the University of Maryland and pursue poker full-time.

Since then, Daniel has seen his fair share of highs and lows; he’s lost up to $1 million in a single day but also won up to tens of millions in a single day. He’s had a chunk of bad beats but has persisted anyway, relentless on his path to victory.

Spoiler alert: this unstoppable ambition has rewarded him greatly.

One of the greatest highs of Daniel’s career came at none other than the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2021. He claimed the #1 position in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship 6-Handed, which is widely seen as the second most important event in the competition (behind the Main Event). He walked away with an incredible prize of over $950,000.

The next year, Daniel made history by winning the competition again. Not only did he successfully defend his title, but he became the first person ever to win back-to-back Poker Players Championships. Oh, and his prize money for the 2022 competition? A cool $1.4 million.

Newest Projects: Creating a Brighter Future

Although Daniel has his eyes set on winning more championships in the coming years, he says he’s more invested in creating a better poker industry and a better world at large. A key part of achieving this goal is the work he’s doing through his own organization, the Dan Cates Foundation.

“We recently started a project called Project Rise,” he shares. “The whole theme of the project is to educate the kids that don’t get the proper education from mainstream schools or who are interested in an alternative education around life skills and things to deal with their inner traumas.”

His hope, he explains, is that Project Rise performs well enough that it can be applied on a larger scale and help even more kids transform their lives.

In the dog-eat-dog world of professional poker, few players have made as big an impact as Daniel Cates. From his early passion for games to his rise as a two-time WSOP winner, his journey has been iconic. But the true stars of his legacy aren’t the millions won, or the titles claimed — it’s his resilience and drive to make both the poker sphere and the world at large a better place.

Fun Facts: What You Don’t Know About Daniel

• In poker circles, Daniel is often known as “Jungleman”; the nickname comes from his screen name “jungleman12”, which he used when he first started playing online poker.
• As of 2022, Daniel’s poker winnings total at over $11.8 million.
• Daniel was diagnosed with autism at age 12.
• When Daniel won the 2021 Poker Players Championship, he did it dressed as the character Akuma from the Street Fighter video game.
• When he won the 2022 Poker Players Championship, he did it dressed as “Macho Man.”

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