Thanks to victories on the televised World Poker Tour and a stint behind the microphone as a television color commentator for ESPN’s World Series of Poker Main Event coverage last year, Esfandiari was already a high-profile poker commodity. Strange is it sounds, winning a record poker jackpot of $18.3 million might seem like chicken feed over the next few years for Antonio Esfandiari.īrian Balsbaugh, the CEO of Poker Royalty, the Las Vegas-based firm that manages the careers of poker players, said Esfandiari’s victory in the World Series of Poker’s $1 million buy-in 'Big One for One Drop' event last week at the Rio 'catapults him into the stratosphere of poker celebrity.'
