Mark Scheinberg, co-founder of the online poker giant PokerStars, has been cited as Canada’s ninth richest person with a net worth estimated to be somewhere in the region of US$4.8bn. The citation features in the recently published 2018 World’s Billionaires List compiled by Forbes.
Israel-born Scheinberg moved to Canada with his family at the age of 13 years. In 2001, as an entrepreneurial 28-year-old computer programmer, Scheinberg and his father founded the online gaming company PokerStars. It went on to become the largest and most successful poker site in the world. By 2014, Scheinberg Jnr was also the CEO and majority shareholder of Rational Group Ltd, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.
Thee Rational Group and all its assets were acquired by Amaya Gaming Group later that year in a $4.9bn deal, making a millionaire of Scheinberg and the richest person on the Isle of Man where he made his home and located the PokerStars HQ. Through a series of savvy investments thereafter, Scheinberg’s wealth grew to today’s Forbes estimate of US$4.8bn. He still has some way to go, however, to catch Novomatic founder and owner Professor Johann Graf who has fortune said to be worth US$8.1bn.
