At just 23 years old, Harvey Castro has earned the prestigious honor of winning the World Poker Tour (WPT) Season 23 Player of the Year. The former Southern Methodist University midfielder, who scored six goals and dished out nine assists in 63 career games, won $411,320 in tour earnings across four WPT cashes in 2025.
Big results fuel POY victory
Castro earned the victory by accumulating 1850 points, beating Kharlin Sued by 250 points. Schuyler Thornton, Mike Vanier, and Art Peacock rounded out the top five.
Castro earned the large bulk of his points with two big results. Though he didn’t win a WPT title like the rest of the players in the top six, he finished second in the WPT Rolling Thunder Championship, winning $165,000 and earning 700 POY points.
However, his biggest result came in the $1,100 WPT Prime Lodge Championship. Castro topped a field of 1,648 entries to win $225,020 and the WPT Prime trophy. He beat a star-studded final table that included Esther Taylor, Rafael Reis, and Joshua Stewart.
Amazingly, these aren’t Castro’s biggest results of his career. At his young age, Castro has already earned $1,699,705 in live career tournament earnings, with his largest cash of $275,660 coming in the 2023 WSOP Circuit Main Event. Castro has done well whenever he’s played the PokerGO schedule, picking up a pair of second-place finishes in the last 14 months.
While four WPT cashes doesn’t sound like many, it’s worth mentioning that nobody during the 2025 campaign cashed more than five WPT events.
WPT Player of the Year Season 23 results
| Rank | Player | POY Points | Earnings | Cashes | Final Tables | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvey Castro | 1,850 | $411,320 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | Kharlin Sued | 1,600 | $576,400 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | Schuyler Thornton | 1,575 | $2,298,516 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | Mike Vanier | 1,550 | $423,200 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| 5 | Art Peacock | 1,425 | $806,500 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 6 | Nico Betbese | 1,400 | $709,440 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 7 | Kevin Nee | 1,325 | $620,200 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Danny Wong | 1,275 | $341,780 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| 9 | Soheb Porbandarwala | 1,250 | $1,969,344 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 | Aaron Johnson | 1,200 | $1,010,400 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Harvey Castro’s 2025 WPT results
As we mentioned earlier, the bulk of Castro’s points came in the WPT Rolling Thunder Championship and the WPT Prime Lodge Championship. He also earned a pair of small cashes in the WPT Venetian Las Vegas Championship and the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship.
| Event | Place | Points | Winnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| WPT Prime Lodge Championship | 1st | 1,000 | $225,020 |
| WPT Venetian Las Vegas Championship | 80th | 75 | $11,700 |
| WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship | 94th | 75 | $9,600 |
| WPT Rolling Thunder Championship | 2nd | 700 | $165,000 |
WPT Player of the Year List
Harvey Castro becomes the sixth WPT Player of the Year to not win an official WPT title. This is the first time that it’s happened in back-to-back years.
Castro joins poker legends like Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Little, and Faraz Jaka as players to earn this prestigious honor.
