Justin Bonomo is one of the richest and most successful poker players of all time. Still, his life outside the poker room is way more exciting.

He lives in a luxury penthouse in a skyscraper on the Las Vegas Strip together with several wives. Bonomo is a self-professed polyamorist, who believes a person can have (and should have) several romantic partners at the same time.

Obviously, this kind of lifestyle is not something everyone can afford. But, Bonomo can. He’s a millionaire, who’s earned just short of $50M in his professional poker career.

SECOND IN ALL-TIME MONEY LIST

With $49,128,105 earned in live tournaments, Justin ‘ZeeJustin’ Bonomo definitely belongs to the list of 10 people who got rich from poker. Actually, with nearly $50M cashed-out, he is the second-highest earner in live poker.

Big earnings don't always mean big poker talent. According to Trademate’s own poker expert Jonas Gjelstad, some people from the top of the All-Time Money List got there thanks to luck, not skills. That, however, is not the case with Bonomo who’s proven himself to be one of the greats of the game.

Pro Poker Player, Jonas Gjelstad, reveals who he thinks are the top 10 best theoretical poker players on the All-Time Money List on the Hendon Mob Poker Database

This guy has won 55 cashes at WSOP so far, reaching final tables on 19 occasions along the way. As of 2020, he has three WSOP bracelets in his collection.

Apart from killing it in live poker tournaments, Bonomo has also won a lot in online poker, although some of his internet adventures were covered in a cloak of controversy.

ENEMY OF ONLINE POKER ROOMS

It’s fair to say that many online poker websites don’t like Justin Bonomo. It’s not just that he’s been destroying other less-skilled players. It’s also because he apparently used to use some techniques poker rooms didn’t consider legit.

The year was 2006 when the 20-year-old Bonomo got suspended by online poker rooms PokerStars and PartyPoker, who blocked his account and seized his winnings.

Why? Because ZeeJustin used multiple accounts at the same time, which is a practice that poker sites didn’t (and still don’t) allow.

It’s still not clear for how long he was using this strategy before getting caught. His fellow online poker player Josh “JJProdigy” Field was the first to get busted, after which, poker websites started tightening up their security.

The investigation conducted by the security team of PartyPoker showed that Bonomo was using six different accounts. More often than not, he was playing with multiple accounts at the same tournament.

This had helped him win tens of thousands of dollars, which was seized by the poker room. PartyPoker used that money to pay back the players who lost to Bonomo due to his illicit actions.

As a result, he got banished from PartyPoker. Upon learning about his mischiefs, the world’s biggest online poker room, PokerStars decided to do the same. However, PokerStars' beef with Bonomo didn’t last for too long.

In 2009, his account was reactivated when he became a part of the Bodog Poker team. He stayed as a sponsored member of this team for about a year before deciding to move on to playing high-stakes poker in live tournaments.

LIVING THE HIGH LIFE IN LAS VEGAS SKYSCRAPER

Bonomo is a millionaire in his mid-thirties, who’s living the high life. His home is a large apartment in Panorama Towers, a skyscraper complex on the Las Vegas Strip.

The building is just across Bellagio and is very close to all the other famous Las Vegas casinos, so it’s obvious why Bonomo picked Panorama Towers to be his home.

He’s not the only one, though. There are many other professional poker players who live in Panorama Towers. Actually, this building complex is the residence of more than 70 other pro poker players.

According to Bonomo, he’s friends with many of them, so the party never stops in Panorama Towers. Apart from partying at home, he is often seen in prestigious clubs and restaurants around the city.

People seem to love hanging out with him, but he sometimes just wants to stay home and have a nice family dinner with his girlfriends. Yup, Justin Bonomo has several girlfriends and they don’t seem to mind sharing him.

LOVER NOT A FIGHTER

Justin Bonomo has been outspoken about his practice of polyamory. If you’re not familiar with the term, it basically means that he thinks it’s okay to have several romantic partners at the same time.

He’s okay with it and it seems his girlfriends are okay with that as well. They don’t seem to mind sharing Bonomo’s love between them.

Don’t think ZeeJustin is a selfish polyamorist who wants all the girls for himself. On the contrary, he has no problem with his girlfriends making out with other guys.

“I’ve watched my girlfriends play with other people before, and it’s something I actually enjoy.”

WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER? BONOMO DOES!

One of his biggest interests outside of the poker room is life extension. Bonobo believes it’s possible to drastically change human lifespan. How? Through certain medical procedures.

The problem is that those procedures are pretty much nonexistent. Cryonics (freezing of human corpses until the cure is found) and similar procedures are still at the theoretical stage and are yet to be proven in practice.

There’s a debate in the medical community about these sorts of procedures, but Justin Bonomo is an optimist. He believes life extension is something worth investing in. That’s exactly what he’s done in the past, investing at least 10 grand in a life-extension project called SENS.

To be honest, he’s a bit young to think about dying. At the age of 36, he’s in his prime. His poker career is also going pretty well, but there’s definitely some room for improvement.

Bonomo is currently second in the All-Time Money List, trailing behind his fellow American Bryn Kenney by “only” $6.5M.

How to go from a winning poker player to a profitable sports bettor, read here.

Check out the other articles in our 10 People Who Got Rich from Poker series on:

• Article 1: Daniel Negreanu, the most famous poker play of all time
• Article 2: Phil Ivey cheated his way to a $10 million win
• Article 3: Phil “POKER BRAT” Hellmuth, the biggest trash talker in poker
• Article 4: Fedor Holz, a multimillionaire by 23
• Article 5: Patrik Antonius, winning the biggest ever online pot & nearly becoming a tennis pro
• Article 6: Gus Hansen, the great Dane who went on a $20.7M losing streak!
• Article 7: Doug Polk, a poker pensioner at 31 who now plays warcraft full-time
• Article 8: Chris Ferguson, the Jesus of poker who turned full antichrist
• Article 10: Mike Matusow, a former prisoner and Trump-worshipping poker legend
• Article 11: Viktor Blom, a.k.a. ILSIDUR1, the record holder for the biggest loss in online poker history
• Article 12: Bryn Kenney, the richest man in poker
• Article 13: Jonas Gjelstad, leaving school early and moving to Thailand to become a professional poker player