Jack Binion: Biography, Career and Poker Results

October 20, 2026

Table of Contents

Jack Binion is an American casino executive, born in 1937, who ran Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas when it hosted the first World Series of Poker in 1970. The son of Benny Binion, he became president of the Horseshoe at 26, later built the Horseshoe Gaming casino company, which he sold to Harrah’s Entertainment for $1.45 billion in 2004, and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2005. ^[1][2][5]

Jack Binion, photographed at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas — “Jackbinion” by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Jack Binion: key facts

Full name	Jack Benny Binion ^[1]
Born	1937, Texas ^[3][5]
Nationality	United States ^[1]
Father	Benny Binion, founder of Binion’s Horseshoe ^[1]
Known for	President of Binion’s Horseshoe from 1963; host of the World Series of Poker from 1970 ^[1][4]
Poker Hall of Fame	Inducted 2005 ^[2]
Gaming Hall of Fame	Inducted 2004 (American Gaming Association) ^[1][6]
Business	Founder of Horseshoe Gaming, sold to Harrah’s in 2004 for $1.45 billion ^[5]
Live tournament earnings	None listed as of October 5, 2026 ^[1]

Early life: from Texas to Las Vegas

PokerNews describes Binion as a “born-and-raised Texan”. His father ran illegal gambling in Dallas until a reform administration shut the town’s games down in the fall of 1946. Benny went to Las Vegas first, and Jack followed in 1947, during a semester break. “I always had a great childhood,” he told PokerNews, recalling summers on the family’s ranch in Montana before his father opened the Horseshoe in 1951. ^[3]

Benny Binion was later sent to prison for tax evasion and lost his gaming license. According to Card Player, during that period Jack, still a teenager, began informally running the Horseshoe with his brother Ted. ^[4] His father sold the casino to Joe W. Brown, a gambler from New Orleans, who later sold it to the group that owned The Fremont. Jack held 2.5 percent of the business at 27 and built that up to 25 percent; when the group ran into money problems, the family borrowed from the bank and bought back 100 percent of the property. ^[3]

President of Binion’s Horseshoe

In 1963, at the age of 26, Binion became president of Binion’s Horseshoe, and he also served as its general manager, while his brother Ted acted as casino manager. ^[1][3][4] “In those days, I did everything,” he told Card Player. ^[4] He described the workload to PokerNews: “I work seven days a week. One time, I went a year and a half without a day off,” adding that “fear of failure made me work really hard.” ^[3]

Creating the World Series of Poker

In 1969 Jack, his father and his brother traveled to Reno for a gamblers’ gathering held by Tom Moore at the Holiday Hotel. “It was just a poker game,” Binion recalled, and it was there that he met Doyle Brunson. ^[3] When Moore said he would not run the event again, the Binions asked whether he minded them holding one. “He said he didn’t mind and the World Series was born,” Binion told PokerNews. ^[8]

In 1970 the Horseshoe hosted the first World Series of Poker, and PokerNews calls Jack Binion its “first ever host”. ^[1] That first edition was a series of cash games, with the best player chosen by an informal vote; Johnny Moss won it. ^[4] Binion says he chose the name: “They just got six guys together to do it and I named it the World Series of Poker.” He credits Amarillo Slim with the idea of a multi-player freezeout. ^[3]

Year	Main Event format	Winner	Source
1970	Cash games; champion chosen by vote	Johnny Moss	[4]
1971	Freezeout, six players at $5,000 each	Johnny Moss	[4]
1972	Buy-in raised to $10,000	Amarillo Slim ($60,000)	[4]

“There was no publicity on this. In fact, nobody wanted any publicity,” Binion said of the 1971 event, since many of the players were bookmakers at home. Of Amarillo Slim’s 1972 win he said: “It’s like we made him up.” ^[4] On the size of the buy-in: “When we started, $10,000 was a ton of money. … We didn’t want any lightweights in it.” ^[4] The 1971 Series added preliminary events in limit Seven Card Stud and Razz, and 1973 brought the first No-Limit Hold’em preliminary event. ^[4] The tournament was not the casino’s main business: “Slots made a lot more money for sure,” Binion said. ^[3]

Others give him much of the credit. Doyle Brunson told Card Player: “There would be no World Series if it wasn’t for him, and very likely there would not be any tournament poker.” In 2009, WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said: “We consider Jack (Binion) to be the patriarch of poker.” ^[4]

Was Jack Binion a poker player?

Binion’s influence on poker came as a casino executive rather than as a player, and his PokerNews profile lists no live tournament earnings. ^[1] He has described himself as a “second-tier poker player” who “wasn’t bad, wasn’t good”. Asked to name the best all-around player he had seen, he chose the late Chip Reese. ^[4] He called Phil Hellmuth “the first what I call ‘modern players'”. ^[3]

He has also helped poker historians check old stories. In 2017 he told PokerNews that the famous match between Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandolos took place in 1949 at the Flamingo, not in public, and not at the Horseshoe, and that “the Moss and Nick the Greek game was not the inspiration for the WSOP.” ^[8]

Career milestones

Year	Milestone	Source
1963	Becomes president of Binion’s Horseshoe, aged 26	[1]
1970	The Horseshoe hosts the first World Series of Poker	[1][4]
1998	Sells his shares in the Horseshoe to his sister Becky Binion-Behnen	[3]
2004	Sells Horseshoe Gaming to Harrah’s Entertainment for $1.45 billion	[5]
2004	Inducted into the American Gaming Association’s Gaming Hall of Fame	[6]
2005	Inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame	[2]
2006	Named chairman of Wynn International, overseeing the opening of Wynn Macau	[7]

Leaving the Horseshoe

Benny Binion died on Christmas Day 1989, and Jack continued to run the Horseshoe with other family members. After his mother, Teddy Jane, died in 1994, disagreements within the family led him to sell his shares to his sister, Becky Binion-Behnen, in 1998, taking the Horseshoe brand outside Nevada as part of the deal. ^[3] He kept a 1 percent stake so that he could keep his Nevada gaming license. ^[5] Former WSOP media director Nolan Dalla, quoted by PokerNews, wrote that the family split “resulted in Jack’s exclusion from WSOP operations” and that many top players boycotted the casino and the tournament between 1999 and 2002. ^[10]

Horseshoe Gaming and the World Poker Open

Starting in the late 1990s, Binion put the Horseshoe name on riverboat casinos in Tunica, Mississippi; Hammond, Indiana; and Bossier City, Louisiana. In 2004 he sold Horseshoe Gaming to Harrah’s Entertainment, the predecessor of Caesars, for $1.45 billion. “It was a business deal,” he said later. “I just decided it was best to sell.” ^[5] Later that year Harrah’s acquired the downtown Binion’s Horseshoe together with the World Series of Poker, kept the tournament and sold the casino. ^[5] In 2003, the last year under Binion family ownership, the Main Event drew 839 players; in 2006 it drew 8,773. ^[4]

While running Horseshoe Gaming he founded the World Poker Open, which PokerNews describes as a feeder to the WSOP. ^[1] The Jack Binion World Poker Open was played at the Horseshoe and the Gold Strike in Tunica. Its January 2004 championship had a $10,200 buy-in and a guaranteed $1 million first prize, and the previous year’s final, part of the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel, was won by David “Devil Fish” Ulliott for $589,990 after a heads-up match against Phil Ivey. ^[11]

Wynn Macau

In July 2006 Steve Wynn hired Binion, then 69, as chairman of Wynn International to run Wynn Resorts’ international operations, starting with the opening of Wynn Macau. Wynn called him “the smartest inside gambler that ever was”. Binion’s own assessment: “I’m really a Johnny-come-lately, but I know gambling.” ^[7]

Hall of Fame inductions

Binion was inducted into the American Gaming Association’s Gaming Hall of Fame in 2004, at a dinner in Henderson, Nevada. ^[6] A year later he joined the Poker Hall of Fame, in the class of 2005 with Crandall Addington, one of the players at the first WSOP. ^[1][2] His father had established the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979. ^[2]

Later years

Binion lives in Las Vegas. In 2022 PokerNews reported that he and Doyle Brunson still met once a week for lunch. ^[9] The Horseshoe name returned to Las Vegas when Caesars rebranded Bally’s, now the home of the WSOP, as Horseshoe Las Vegas; the property includes a restaurant named Jack Binion’s Steak. ^[3][5] According to PokerNews, a family office now manages the money for him and his family, which includes 16 people in the next generation. ^[3]

In his own words

“They say I’m the father of the WSOP, but really, the WSOP back then wasn’t that big a deal in a way.” Card Player, 2009. ^[4]
“In poker, all the strategies are almost like a life condensed into a couple hours to me.” Card Player, 2009. ^[4]
“They just got six guys together to do it and I named it the World Series of Poker.” PokerNews, 2023. ^[3]
“I think Horseshoe is a very meaningful brand for what it stands for, more so than a lot of (casino) brands.” The Nevada Independent, 2022. ^[5]

FAQ about Jack Binion

Who is Jack Binion?

An American casino executive who was president of Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas when it hosted the first World Series of Poker in 1970. ^[1][4]

How old is Jack Binion?

He was born in 1937. In February 2022 The Nevada Independent reported that he would turn 85 later that month. ^[5]

Is Jack Binion the son of Benny Binion?

Yes. Benny Binion opened the Horseshoe in 1951, and Jack became its president in 1963. ^[1][3]

Did Jack Binion start the World Series of Poker?

He and his father launched it at the Horseshoe in 1970, after attending Tom Moore’s gamblers’ gathering in Reno in 1969, and Jack says he gave the event its name. ^[3]

When was Jack Binion inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame?

In 2005, a year after his induction into the American Gaming Association’s Gaming Hall of Fame. ^[1][2]

What is Jack Binion’s net worth?

There is no reliable public figure for his net worth. His PokerNews profile lists no live tournament earnings as of October 5, 2026. ^[1] The best-documented transaction of his career is the 2004 sale of Horseshoe Gaming to Harrah’s Entertainment for $1.45 billion. ^[5]

Did Jack Binion sell the WSOP to Harrah’s?

No. He had sold his share of Binion’s Horseshoe to his sister in 1998. In 2004 Harrah’s bought his separate company, Horseshoe Gaming, and later that year acquired the downtown Binion’s Horseshoe together with the World Series of Poker. ^[3][5]

Was Jack Binion a professional poker player?

No. He described himself as a “second-tier poker player” and made his career as a casino executive. ^[4]

Related Poker Legends

Read more about Doyle Brunson, whom Binion met in Reno in 1969, Amarillo Slim, the 1972 Main Event champion, and Chip Reese, the player Binion named the best all-around player ever.