Jason Anthony Koon

Poker databases frequently label Jason Koon a Weston native. Local reporting supplies the more precise version: he was born in Charleston and raised in Weston. He graduated from Lewis County High School in 2003, making Lewis County his formative home rather than a technical line in a player database.

Koon was one of the state's best high-school sprinters. He won a state championship in the 200 meters and was considered a favorite in the 100 before a false start ended that race. His speed earned him a track scholarship to West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon.

A severe hip-flexor injury and surgery disrupted Koon's track career. While attending college, he began playing poker with friends and at local games. The same habits that had shaped him as a runner—repetition, preparation, self-analysis, and tolerance for pressure—found a new outlet.

Koon has said publicly that he grew up with little money and became the first person in his family to attend college. Early career accounts describe more than $100,000 in student debt, an online bankroll built from roughly $100, and an $11 tournament that returned about $26,000. Those figures come from career interviews, not audited accounts, but they explain how distant poker's super-high-roller world once was from his starting point.

Playing online as JAKoon1985 and NovaSky, Koon made a major breakthrough during PokerStars' 2009 Spring Championship of Online Poker. His first entry in The Hendon Mob's live database dates to 2008, and a $225,680 finish at Festa al Lago in 2010 became his first six-figure live cash.

Over the next decade he developed into a regular in elite high-roller tournaments and invitation-only cash games. Koon's public reputation rests on more than aggressive stakes: other professionals consistently point to his technical study, fitness, composure, and ability to make recreational players feel welcome. He became an official Triton ambassador in 2019 and later a PokerStars ambassador.

Koon's defining tour has been the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series. Triton's 2026 profile credited him with 81 cashes, 55 top-nine finishes, 12 titles, and close to $41 million in series earnings. No other player had more than seven titles at that snapshot. He was the first player to complete Triton's three-discipline “Trident” by winning in no-limit hold'em, short deck, and pot-limit Omaha.

He also owns two World Series of Poker bracelets: the 2021 $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship and the 2025 $50,000 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller. In August 2026, immediately after becoming eligible at age 40, Koon entered the Poker Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot.

When this profile was checked on August 29, 2026, The Hendon Mob listed Koon with $77,032,156 in live tournament earnings, the third-highest total on its worldwide all-time money list. The figure is a documented record of gross live-tournament payouts—not salary, profit, cash on hand, or net worth.

Tournament databases do not subtract buy-ins, re-entries, events in which a player failed to cash, travel, professional support, backing arrangements, pieces swapped with other players, or taxes. They also do not fully capture private cash games, all online results, sponsorship compensation, or investment income.

Koon's lifetime gross poker inflow is therefore likely higher than his Hendon total, while his retained share of the recorded payouts is necessarily lower. No audited or otherwise reliable exact net-worth figure was found. Celebrity-wealth estimates that simply convert tournament cashes into personal wealth should not be presented as fact.

Jason Koon's local story is not simply that a famous player once lived in Weston. Lewis County is where he learned to compete, where his first ambition took shape, and where an injury forced him to rebuild that ambition. His career now reaches the highest level of an international game, but its habits were formed on a West Virginia track.

That combination—local formation, reinvention, sustained excellence, and global recognition—makes Koon one of the clearest living choices for the Notable Lewis Countians archive.