Antonio Esfandiari was born as Amir Esfandiary on the 8th December 1978 in Tehran, Iran. He is best known all over the world by his stage name “The Magician” – for being a former professional magician, who plays poker professionally, winning two World Poker Tour (WPT) and three World Series of Poker (WSOP) events. He is also recognized as the author of the poker strategy game “The Magician’s Secrets for Winning Tournaments” on iOS. His career began in the late 1990s.
Have you ever wondered how rich is Antonio Esfandiari, as of early 2016? Sources estimate that the overall size of Antonio’s net worth is over $20 million, with the main sources of this amount of money being, of course, his career in the entertainment industry as a magician, and a poker player. Another source is coming from his appearances in several films.
Antonio Esfandiari Net Worth $20 Million
Antonio Esfandiari attended an elementary school in India. He was raised with his younger brother Pasha, who is a professional poker player as well. When Antonio was nine years old, he moved with the family to San Jose, California, where he continued his education and graduated from Del Mar High School. At the age of 16, he started earning money, as he began to work as a waiter in a restaurant, where he saw for the first time card tricks performed by the bartender. He was fascinated and decided to start learning the art of magic. Thus, right after graduation, Antonio started his professional career as a magician, performing amazing card tricks at the same restaurant, and thanks to his talents his net worth started rising.
At the time when Antonio was performing as a magician, he was invited by his friend to play the poker game named Texas Hold ‘em, and this had a big influence on Antonio starting to play poker and participate in poker tournaments. At the beginning, he competed in small tournaments and cash games. Thanks to that, by the year 2000, he had enough money to enter his first world tournament World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in. Although he lost it all there, he has never regretted it, and made the decision to practice more.
To speak of his career on the better side, his first victory came in 2004, when he won at the L.A. Poker Classic, and a money pot of near $1.4 million, considerably increasing his net worth. In the same year, he won his first World Series Of Poker Bracelet in pot-limit Texas Hold ‘em. His next success was the third season of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, in which he finished second, but also participated in the previous season, but without notable success: in fact, he finished last.
Furthermore, in 2008, Antonio was a competitor at the 2008 PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, where he finished 8th, earning as much as $266,004, adding to his net worth. The next year, Antonio`s net worth increased when he finished 24th in the World Series Of Poker Main Event, on the 8th day of the tournament, which gave him $352,832. In 2010, Antonio secured his second career victory at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World, earning more than $870,000. However, he set the record of the biggest cash prize in poker history with $18,346,673, at the Big One for One Drop in 2012.
Overall, Antonio Esfandiari has earned more than $25 million from poker tournaments, making him the 14th player on the Global Poker Index.
In recent years, thanks to the increase in his popularity, Antonio was able to land a few acting roles, which have also added to his overall wealth; he was cast in the film “Freelancers” (2012), alongside Robert De Niro and 50 Cent, and he was also a part of the seventh season of the TV series “Entourage”.
When it comes to Antonio Esfandiari’s personal life, in the media there is little information, except the fact that he is married and their current residence is in San Francisco, California.
wow