Former poker pro and politician turned entrepreneur Antanas Guoga, better known by his poker moniker, Tony G, recently told a social media interviewer that he owns a blockchain company that personally made him $100 million in a year.
Known as a loudmouth player with controversial table talk, Guoga gathered $11 million in tournament poker winnings before turning to the world of media, politics, and now, technology. The Australian-Lithuanian spoke to the YouTube channel School of Hard Knocks while recently out in Dubai.
Guoga was filmed stepping out of a Rolls Royce outside a swanky hotel before being approached by the channel host. During their interview, consisting of business advice, Guoga discussed founding the website Poker News and his new interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
“I went from zero to $300 million,” he said. “Trust yourself, the key is to save and invest.”
Humble Beginnings
Guoga was born in the European nation of Lithuania, then part of the Soviet Union, in the early 1970s. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to Melbourne, Australia.
By age 15, Guoga was playing cash games of poker with high school friends. At the legal age of 18, he was taking on mid- stakes cash games at Melbourne poker rooms and casinos. By the time he turned 19, Guoga had amassed $10,000 playing poker, and decided to head to Las Vegas for better opportunities.
However, it went disastrously bad, and he lost everything but the money for a flight back to Australia.
Poker News
Back in Melbourne in the early 2000s, Guoga decided to turn his love for poker into a business. He bought the domain name PokerNews.com for just $5,000, hired some developers, and started publishing his own articles on the site.
By 2008, Poker News was the dominant poker media business during the online poker boom, bringing big advertising bucks to the site and Guoga’s pockets.
He then decided to take some of his earnings — and his newfound business mindset — and give professional poker a second go. This time, it went much better.
Although he didn’t immediately make huge tournament cash winnings, his aggressive play and TV trash-talking made him a controversial star. He gathered many partnerships and sponsors in the then-booming online poker world.
Politics and $100M Business
After amassing millions from poker, including a reported $3 million private cash game win, Guoga went all-in on his other businesses. He founded betting site and online casino TonyBet and its related brands, and continued to focus on growing Poker News.
By 2016, he had sold both businesses, making tens of millions of dollars. It isn’t known how much he made selling Poker News to iBus Media, owned by PokerStars, as the deal was done piecemeal over several years. In 2016, The Stars Group confirmed they owned PokerNews, but no official statement from Guoga was ever made.
Guoga also found controversy that year when some of his tax affairs were published in the leaked Paradise Papers. The year 2016 was a tough one for him overall, as he was also banned from Russia – a country he often visited to play poker – after publicly criticizing its president, Vladimir Putin.
Over the years since then, Guoga has only sporadically played poker, instead focusing on his investments in tech, including blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Which brings us up-to-date and into 2025, where Guoga recently said he has a net worth of $300 million and has been earning $100 million a year.
He would have been extra thankful for his business ventures in 2024, after his poker exploits last year saw some heavy losses. In one notable night at the Triton High Roller series in Montenegro, Guoga lost $1.5 million across two hands before leaving the table and the session.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
