How much money prospective new Sheffield Wednesday owner James Bord won from playing poker | OneFootball

Bord is a regular at the poker table - but how much money has he actually won there?

Sheffield Wednesday fans are hoping that they will soon be under brand new ownership at Hillsborough - even if the recently-named preferred bidder isn't the individual that they perhaps thought it was going to be.

Having been in administration since late October after maligned owner Dejphon Chansiri finally relinquished control after months of late payments of wages and bills, the Owls have been ran by representatives of Begbies Traynor for the last couple of months whilst they find the best possible solution for the club - all whilst Henrik Pedersen's thread-bare squad have kept fighting on the pitch in the Championship, with relegation looking a near-certainty.

And whilst some names fell by the wayside during the process, the preferred bidder was finally named - and to the surprise of some, it is James Bord that is set to win out and get his hands on Sheffield Wednesday.

James Bord becomes preferred bidder for Sheffield Wednesday

The 44-year-old was confirmed on Christmas Eve as the person at the front of the queue to take over at Hillsborough, but there is still obviously work to be done before he can get his hands on the club.

Bord's business revolves around his founding and running of San Francisco-based data company Short Circuit Science​​​​​​​, which is claimed to be 'at the forefront of sports analytics, harnessing the power of AI and computer vision to delve deep into the world of sports' - and it's perhaps those models that saw a host of young, unproven talent arrive at Wednesday's bitter rivals Sheffield United in the last year.

Known to be one of the figureheads behind United's youth recruitment recently, particularly in Bulgaria, Bord's experimental help on bringing new signings into the fold at Bramall Lane has now ended, but it's not just analytics he's into - Poker has been a big love for Bord for a number of years.

How much money has James Bord won as a poker player?

And Bord is a pretty successful poker player at that too.

According to The Hendon Mob's database, Bord has been a winner of $4,304,535 (£3,195,207) in prize money throughout his career at the table, with his biggest singular winning prize coming in the 2016 Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza, where despite finishing only fourth, he managed to come away with a seven-figure sum of $2,315,044 (£1,718,430).

His biggest winning tournament however came all the way back in 2010 when competing in the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe, landing the top prize of the WSOPE Championship No Limit Hold'em competition, which netted Bord a cool sum of £830,401.

Bord only comes 581st in the all-time money ranking list for poker players officially, but he is 31st in the whole of England historically, which is pretty good going. Yet, for the prize money that he's won, Bord's poker winnings alone don't come close to being able to own a football club.

It's not known what Bord's net worth is, but he's been able to get a foothold into multiple football clubs, such as Dunfermline Athletic of Scotland and Cordoba of the Spanish second tier, so his wealth cannot be called into question too much, even if official details are somewhat murky.

Whether he has the game-changing funds though to transform Wednesday's fortunes remains to be seen, and it's still not a guarantee that he'll actually be their next owner until he's got EFL approval, but there will need to be hope from the fanbase that Bord is exactly what the Owls need.