Billy Baxter is a well established professional poker player with 7 WSOP Bracelets under his belt, all won in Lowball poker tournaments. Not quite 70 years of age, Baxter has accumulated $1,758,341 playing live poker tournaments, having cashed 44 times over his lucrative career.

Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1940, Billy Baxter grew up as a successful hustler. He realized he had a talent for hustling at the age of 14, had saved up $5,000 by 16 and upon turning 18, made his way into the local taverns where he discovered his true calling - the game of poker.

Billy Baxter took a honeymoon trip with his new wife in 1975 that landed them in Las Vegas, Nevada on the return flight. For the next nine months, Baxter and his bride lived in a Las Vegas hotel as Billy was earning a living at the poker tables. It was during this time that Billy cashed in his first live poker tournament - the 1975 WSOP Event #4 NL 2-7 Lowball - earning $35,000 and his first WSOP Bracelet.

Also during these profitable escapades, Baxter met up with other professional poker players including Doyle Brunson and Puggy Pearson. He also became friends with Stu Ungar, who he would eventually end up staking at the poker tables from 1990 until Ungar’s untimely death in 1998.

Baxter’s next live tournament cash did not come until the 1978 WSOP, taking down the first event for $90,000 and his second WSOP Bracelet. Billy repeated this victory in 1982, winning the same event, this time earning $48,750 and his third WSOP Bracelet. To ice the cake, Baxter went on to win Event #2 as well, collecting his fourth WSOP Bracelet the very next day, along with another $95,000.

At the 1987 WSOP, Baxter again won the second event, another NL 2-7 Lowball worth $153,000 and yet another (fifth) WSOP Bracelet. Over the following years, Baxter cashed several more times, earning enough to sustain a luxurious lifestyle, but his next 1st place victory, resulting in a sixth WSOP Bracelet, did not come until the 1993 WSOP - once again, a NL 2-7 Lowball tournament worth $130,500.

In 2002, Billy Baxter earned his seventh, and thus far final, WSOP Bracelet in a Limit Razz event, pocketing $64,860 along the way. Baxter’s career has seen a steady influx of lucrative cashes in live poker tournaments each and every year since.

Baxter’s most recent, significant win in a live poker tournament came on April 7th and 14th of 2008 at the Five Star World Poker Classic of WPT Season 6. Billy finished 1st in Event #6, NL Hold’em, earning $149,755, then again at Event #12, a Seniors NL Hold’em tournament awarding $138,990.

Though his professional poker career has earned him both fame and fortune, Billy Baxter is perhaps best known for “William E. Baxter Jr. versus the United States”, a court case decided in 1986. Baxter fought the US governments’ decision to place poker winnings under “unearned income”, inciting up to 70% taxation on such earnings. Baxter was determined to change the laws, and did so when he won the case. Since then, professional poker players have been able to claim poker winnings as “earned income”.