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.

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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 [4] 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/)