How much do WSOP winners actually take home?

For John Cynn, winning the Main Event for $8.8 million worths less than $5 million. How is it possible?

Last week, nine players walked away from the Rio with a seven-figure payday each - we may believe. But in reality only 7 of them made more than a million, as the biggest winner of the final table is the Internal Revenue Service(IRS), banking a total of $9,811,437 in taxes.

Illinois' John Cynn, has to pay federal income tax, self-employment tax and Illinois income tax for a total of 43.87%, or $3,860,183, meaning he's get to keep "only" $4,939,817. He can still feel lucky, as last year he would've paid more than $4 million - apparently, sometimes tax reform can beneficial.

A resident of Jacksonville, Florida, Tony Miles, who finished as the runner-up, will pay almost $2 million on his $5,000,000 score ($1,939,341 to be exact), which is a 38.79% rake-off. Tony will at least benefit from the lack of personal income tax in the Sunshine State.

Third place finisher, Michal Dyer of Houston, Texas will avoid state income tax, but the $1,449,275 (38.65%) is also a big portion of his winnings.

Micolas Manion of Muskegon, Michigan ended up 4th for $2.825 million. Nicolas will have to pay three taxes, as he's required to pay federal, state and city taxes as well. The total sum will be an estimated $1,217,323.

Former Main Event champ, Joe Cada made an incredible run in this year's Main, finishing 5th in the field of 7,874. Joe walked away with $2,150,000 but only 59.41% of that will stay in his pocket, as he's looking to pay 40.59% in total taxes or $872,635. Back in 2009, Joe paid 42% of his $8,546,435 prize.

Aram Zobian of Cranston, Rhode Island, ended up in 6th place for $1.8 million. Aram will 5.99% to Rhode Island, and 40.10% overall, for a total of $721,821.

The first non-US citizen is 7th place finisher, Alex Lynskey of Melbourne. The United States and Australia have a tax treaty, but it doesn't cover gambling, which means Alex will owe 30% to the IRS ($450,000) on his $1.5 million win. Australia also taxes gambling winning for professionals, up to 45%. However, as foreign tax credits can be taken for taxes paid to the other country. In addition to the $450K for the IRS, Lynskey will also have to pay $215,296 to the Australian Taxation Office.

Artem Metalidi from Kiev, Ukraine got 8th. Artem is the luckiest player in terms of taxes, as he'll only pay 18% internal tax and an addition 1.5% military tax, meaning he'll only loes $243,750 of his $1,250,000.

Frenchman, Antoine Labat received a paycheck of $1 million for finishing 9th. The US and France have a tax treaty exempting gambling winnings, but Atoine will still owe France about $432,574, which is roughly 43%.

This means, 39% of the $28,075,000 final-table prize pool will go to taxes, for a total of almost $11 million, which is more then the first prize.

Please note, that these calculations doesn't take selling action into consideration, which many players are likely have done.

(source: taxabletalk.com/)