WSOP Poker Hall of Fame Reveals Ten Finalists for 2024
It’s that time of year again. The World Series of Poker prepares to induct one person into its Poker Hall of Fame. The final announcement will happen on July 14 at the start of Event 95.
This week, the WSOP made public its list of ten finalists from the original nominees.
Nomination Process
The annual process of choosing the latest inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame begins just after the start of the World Series of Poker. This year, the announcement on June 5 opened the public nomination portal for anyone to nominate a person in poker that they feel should be in the Hall of Fame.
There are several criteria that must be met for nominees to be considered:
- Person must be at least 40 years old at the time of nomination.
- Person must have played poker against acknowledged top competition.
- Person must have played high-stakes poker consistently well, standing the test of time and gaining the respect of peers.
People can also nominate non-players, if the nominees have contributed to the overall growth and success of poker with indelible positive and lasting results.
When the nomination process closed at the end of the day on June 16, the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council compiled the list and took the top qualified ten with the most nominations. That list is then made public and provided to living Hall of Fame members for votes. Those votes will then be tabulated, and the winner will be announced on July 14.
The winner will be contacted prior to July 14 so their friends and family can be present at the induction ceremony. This will take place at the WSOP at the start of Event 95 on that Sunday. The tournament is the Poker Hall of Fame Bounty No Limit Hold’em event, in which every living and able member of the Hall of Fame plays with a bounty on his or her head, a bounty corresponding to the year of their induction. For example, the newest inductee will play with a $2,024 bounty.
2024 HOF Finalists
On July 2, the WSOP announced the ten finalists. The list includes several people who have been nominated in the past, some of them numerous times.
- Mike Matusow (9 previous nominations)
- Matt Savage (8 previous nominations)
- Ted Forrest (6 previous nominations)
- Isai Scheinberg (4 previous nominations)
- Kathy Liebert (2 previous nominations)
- Josh Arieh (2 previous nominations)
- Patrik Antonius (1 previous nomination)
- Bill Smith (1 previous nomination)
- Barny Boatman
- John Cernuto
Boatman and Cernuto are the only two new names on the list this year. As noted, several people are regulars in the nomination process. However, since only one person can be inducted each year now, per WSOP guidelines since 2020, there is more of a backlog of names than ever, ones widely believed to be deserving of a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Current Hall of Fame
The first inductions to the Poker Hall of Fame took place in 1979. For many years, there was a physical spot for the Hall of Fame at Binion’s in Downtown Las Vegas. However, that was removed years ago, and in 2023, the WSOP established a new physical location for the Poker HOF at the Horseshoe Las Vegas poker room.
(Note: The website now states that the Hall of Fame “traditionally elects one or two members annually.” This could be an opening to induct more than one this year.)
The initial list of inductees are legends of the game, such as Johnny Moss, Nick Dandalos, “Wild Bill” Hickok, “Puggy” Pearson, and Jack Strauss. Doyle Brunson earned his induction in 1988, Benny Binion in 1990, Chip Reese in 1991, and “Amarillo Slim” Preston in 1992. There was a break in nominations after 1997, but they resumed a few years later and inducted from that year forward as follows:
- 2001: Stu Ungar
- 2002: Johnny Chan and Lyle Berman
- 2003: Bobby Baldwin
- 2004: Berry Johnston
- 2005: Jack Binion and Crandell Addington
- 2006: TJ Cloutier and Billy Baxter
- 2007: Barbara Enright and Phil Hellmuth
- 2008: Henry Orenstein and Dewey Tomko
- 2009: Mike Sexton
- 2010: Erik Seidel and Dan Harrington
- 2011: Linda Johnson and Barry Greenstein
- 2012: Eric Drache and Brian “Sailor” Roberts
- 2013: Scotty Nguyen and Tom McEvoy
- 2014: Daniel Negreanu and Jack McClelland
- 2015: Jennifer Harman and John Juanda
- 2016: Todd Brunson and Carlos Mortensen
- 2017: Phil Ivey and David “Devilfish” Ulliott
- 2018: John Hennigan and Mori Eskandani
- 2019: Chris Moneymaker and David Oppenheim
- 2020: Huck Seed
- 2021: Eli Elezra
- 2022: Layne Flack
- 2023: Brian Rast
