Dan Harrington Net Worth - Career Earnings, WSOP Legacy & Bio (Updated January 2026)

Dan “Action Dan” Harrington is a true poker legend and one of the most respected tournament minds in the game’s history.

He’s a former World Series of Poker Main Event champion whose calm, strategic style helped define the early boom era. Here we break down his verified results alongside estimates of what remains untracked from private cash games.

The American poker icon has amassed $6,653,820 in tracked live tournament earnings, as of 2026, crowned by his iconic WSOP 1995 Main Event victory.

Much of his wealth likely came from high-stakes cash games and where results stay off the public record, making the common Dan Harrington net worth figure of $8 million an educated estimate rather than a verified figure.

Below we investigate his verifiable earnings highlights, net worth breakdown, and the key moments that cemented “Action Dan” as a poker legend in 2026.

Dan Harrington’s true net worth is not publicly confirmed information and any published figure remains an educated guess rather than a verifiable total.

Much of his poker career unfolded in an era where high-stakes games took place in smokey back rooms with little to zero information ever becoming public knowledge.

However, Harrington stands apart from many of his poker playing peers due to his successful legal and business career outside of the game, which appears to form a major part of his wealth.

Net worth estimates (and why they’re hard to pin down)

Online sources quote a range of figures for Dan Harrington’s net worth, but these vary widely and are not verified.

Conservative estimates place his net worth at around $8 million, while others suggest much higher figures. This estimate includes untracked poker income, book royalties from his game-changing Harrington on Hold’em series, and also his business success.

No precise number exists, as private game results are undocumented, and Harrington’s legal career and real estate lending venture adds further confusion to the estimate.

What we can verify: tracked live earnings

Dan Harrington’s live tournament results are fully tracked through the Hendon Mob database, going back as far as 1986. As of February 2026, his official live tournament earnings total $6,653,820 across five decades.

This figure reflects only cashes and not net profit after buy-ins are deducted and excludes any private cash game play or non-poker income.

Why estimates vary: private games, business, and non-poker income

Harrington played high-stakes private cash games throughout his career, most notably at New York’s Mayfair Club in the 1980s and also in some televised sessions.

But these results remain untracked and cannot be estimated accurately as a part of Dan Harrington’s net worth estimation. Instead, sources more frequently highlight his co-founding of Anchor Loans in 1998, a real estate loan company that has funded over $5.3 billion in loans, as of 2026.

Harrington served as CEO of the firm until around 2010 and retains shareholder interests. This information is a key and more verifiable wealth contributor than any guesses of his success in private cash games, just as with Sam Farha.

His influential poker series Harrington on Hold’em and cash game volumes also generated substantial royalties during the boom years.

All estimates should be treated cautiously, as they blend these considerations without full transparency.

Dan Harrington is best known as a live tournament master and WSOP Main Event champion whose calm, calculated style defined an era, but he also built his foundation in high-stakes cash games long before the boom.

Live tournament earnings (tracked)

As of February 2026, Harrington’s tracked live tournament earnings total $6,653,820, as per the Hendon Mob database.

He has played much more selectively after his WSOP 1995 Main Event win, prioritising his legal career and business ventures, yet he has still produced some standout results during poker’s explosive growth in the early 2000s.

Biggest live cashes and notable results

Private cash game legacy (untracked)

Harrington’s reputation was forged in the 1970s and 1980s in private cash games in various Boston card rooms, including early low-stakes sessions against figures like billionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen who were at Harvard University while Harrington was studying law at Boston.

Later there was action at New York’s elite Mayfair Club where he regularly played with future stars like Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, and Steve Zolotow.

These untracked cash games built his edge and bankroll long before any tournament fame, though we cannot put any kind of an accurate figure on the amount of success.

Dan Harrington’s poker career spans more than five decades, touching on both areas of the game where the very best compete — high-stakes private cash games and high-stakes live tournaments, particularly at the World Series of Poker.

Early life & background

Dan Harrington was born on December 6, 1945, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to parents who were both immigrants from Ireland.

Growing up in the Boston area, he showed an early affinity for strategy when he began to shine at the chess board, winning the Massachusetts State Chess Championship in 1971. He is also a world-class backgammon player.

He attended Suffolk University, later moving onto Suffolk Law School where went on to specialise in bankruptcy and real estate law.

It was during his law school years when he began playing poker seriously in local Boston card rooms, building up the skills that made him the player he would become.

The Mayfair Club & coming of age as a player

By the mid 1980s, Harrington was a reg at New York’s Mayfair Club, a legendary private high-stakes venue. He played alongside a number of opponents who would themselves become big names in the game. Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, and Steve Zolotow were just a few of those.

It was this period where Harrington chalked up his first WSOP appearances, recording his maiden cash in 1986 when he finished 24th in a $1,500 Limit Hold’em event. He followed up with his first final table appearance a year later when he finished sixth in the Main Event.

Although Harrington was clearly able to compete at the top in a live tournament setting, he only recorded six more cashes until he won the Main Event in 1995, preferring to focus on his cash game career and business.

Breakthrough and WSOP legend status

The defining year of Harrington’s poker career was 1995 where he won two bracelets. First he claimed his maiden gold bracelet with victory in a $2,500 NL Hold’em event, and then won the Main Event only two weeks later for $1,000,000 after defeating 273 players.

As defending Main Event champion in 1996, Harrington returned to the WSOP and cashed in 17th place for $23,400, though he was already beginning to step back from full-time play.

By 1998 he had co-founded Anchor Loans, a hard-money lending firm, alongside poker friends Jeff Lipton and Stephen Pollack. He used a portion of his poker winnings to help launch the business, serving as its first CEO until stepping down in 2010.

2000s boom & stepping back

During poker’s explosive boom years in the early 2000s, Harrington proved he could still compete at the very highest level despite playing far less frequently.

In 2003 he finished 3rd in the iconic WSOP Main Event behind only Sam Farha and Chris Moneymaker.

The following year he took 4th place for $1,500,000, even more than he got for winning the event a decade previously.

Those back-to-back final tables in the world’s biggest tournament remain one of the most impressive feats of the era.

In 2010, Dan Harrington was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame alongside Erik Seidel, recognising not only his WSOP Main Event win and tournament record, but also his lasting influence as an author following the massive success of the Harrington on Hold’em series which educated countless players during the boom years.

After that, Harrington has played only sporadically, although he did return to the World Series of Poker in 2024 after a decade away.

Dan Harrington is one of the most respected strategic minds in poker history. Over an extended period of time, he was able to showcase his abilities in both technical knowledge and execution at the table. His natural mental game ability was also as good as anybody else from his era.

Core Playing Style

Harrington’s game was built on patience, precision, and deep mathematical understanding. He had a very deliberate and low-variance style where he avoided unnecessary risks, waited for good spots, and capitalised on his opponents’ mistakes.

Key Traits include:

Reputation among his peers

Harrington was always widely admired for his composure and intellect. His bestselling books, the Harrington on Hold’em series, turned him into a legend of the game as he unveiled just how deeply he understood the mechanics of poker.

But not everybody was happy: Harrington reported that numerous professionals made their feelings clear about his giving away of supposed pro secrets that would make the games harder to beat in the future.

Dan Harrington has maintained an exceptional reputation throughout his career. No controversies, allegations, or public disputes are documented.

His professionalism, honesty, and respect for the game have left him universally admired, even by competitors.

Harrington resides in Santa Monica, California with his wife Patrice. He maintains a private personal life with no public mentions of children or other immediate family details available.

Harrington has mentioned that his extended family includes Irish major-winning golfer Pádraig Harrington and former NFL quarterback Joey Harrington, who are noted as relatives but not immediate family.

As of 2026, Dan Harrington remains a respected figure in poker. Into his eighties now, he only appears selectively at major tournaments and his books remain bestsellers, even if a bit out of date by now.

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This profile is crafted to clearly distinguish confirmed facts from estimates, speculation, and unverified claims.

Almost any player’s poker history includes a significant amount of untracked elements, especially high-stakes private cash games in the case of well-known players. So we make every effort to be open about what is verifiable and what remains uncertain.

How we handle “net worth”

• No official or publicly disclosed net worth figure exists for all poker players, including Dan Harrington.
• Any figures referenced are presented strictly as estimates and can differ widely depending on unreported cash game results, private investments, business holdings, book royalties, and other non-public income sources.
• We give priority to direct quotes, official tournament databases, and documented business information whenever such sources are available.

How we report earnings

• Live tournament earnings are drawn exclusively from reputable poker databases such as the Hendon Mob and reflect only prize money won and not net profit after deducting buy-ins, travel, or other costs.
• Online results and private cash game winnings are typically not publicly verifiable or reliably documented, so we do not treat them as confirmed figures and note them only when relevant reporting exists

How we cover controversies

• When controversies arise, we link to original sources or our own coverage and clearly indicate what has been alleged, confirmed, denied, or remains unresolved.
• We favour named sources, direct statements from the player or involved parties, and established media reports over anonymous rumours or unverified online discussion.

References

• The Hendon Mob – Dan Harrington (tracked live tournament cashes and results history)
• WSOP.com – Dan Harrington player page (official series profile and event-related references)
• Wikipedia – Dan Harrington (basic biographical context; cross-checked where possible)

Last updated: February 2026.