One of the most recognizable female faces on the global poker circuit, Maria Ho has collected over $4m in total winnings. While also seen as a broadcaster for multiple poker outlets, she’s still picking up lots of money from the table as she continues to have success in 2023, but with the growth of real money online poker it’s an industry that continues to grow in popularity.
Poker Career
Maria Ho was born in Taiwan in 1983 but moved to the United States at the age of four. As a result, she has both American and Chinese citizenship. Ho first dabbled in poker games while studying at college. She later stated that the psychology around the game attracted her to the game, something her sister also enjoyed as she went on to be a famous television psychologist in her own right, Judy Ho.
During her time at the University of California, San Diego she accumulated enough funds from the local Indian casinos to have a bankroll to start her professional poker career. While some might have said she was disregarding her major in Communications and minor in Law, it didn’t take long for her to become a poker success after graduating in 2005.
In 2007, she was the last woman competing in the World Series of Poker tour and made it to the Main Event field. She would go on to finish 38th of out the entire pool of over 6000 players. This would signal her first major win as she took home a crisp sum over $235,000. Her successes on the table have only continued ever since as she is now ranked within the top five female poker players of all time by the WSOP Women’s All-Time Money List.
Maria has also played on the World Poker Tour when she famously won the LA Poker Classic $25,000 Higher Roller competition. That however wasn’t her biggest cash haul. She won a staggering $540,020 on a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event in 2011. Big wins like this has led to her induction into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, part of the 2018 class.
As an Asian woman in poker, Ho has often had to fight just to be at the table as she’s not been granted the same level of access as some of her contemporaries in the sport. Ho hasn’t taken this lightly and has consistently addressed the issues in poker as well as why the sport should promote inclusivity and encourage diversity in the game.
Her net worth is rumoured to be somewhere between $4m and $5m given that she makes a lot of money from the poker tournaments as well as her TV appearances and also made part of her fortune betting real money with online poker.
Television, Media and Broadcasting Ventures
As a popular figure in poker who bucks the trend of what a professional poker play should look like, Maria Ho was selected to be part of the Heartland Poker Tour’s commentary team. This appointment was groundbreaking at the time as she was the first woman to offer strategic commentary on poker.
Her performance went on to bigger projects as she would go on to work for both CBS and ESPN on their respective poker coverage. This has led her to host and commentary duties on some of the biggest poker tournaments in America including the World Series of Poker, and Amazon eSports Mobile Masters Invitational series. She has also worked closely with PokerGO, providing insight across multiple events.
In 2019 she was recognised as one of Poker’s best and most hardworking broadcasters, as she was named the Broadcaster of the Year by the Global Poker Award. She then went on to host the 2020 ceremony.
Maria has also broken into mainstream media as she has appeared on multiple primetime American television shows including American Idol, The Amazing Race and Deal or No Deal. Ho has also authored the book: Winning Women of Poker: Secret Strategies Revealed, which has received generally good reviews.
Social Media Accounts
Maria Ho is one of the most active poker players on social media with accounts on all major platforms. While her YouTube account is now a little dormant (as she doesn’t create a lot of long-form media for socials) some of her best career moments can be seen there. Her Instagram, @maria_ho has over 100,000 followers who enjoy seeing her at the table about to bet as well as her travels to luxurious destinations.
A similar amount of followers keep up to date with her X account (formerly known as Twitter) as she posts a lot more poker content on this platform when compared to her glam Instagram profile.
