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Kelly Minkin, now known as Kelly Lucas, is an American poker player and Arizona attorney best known for finishing as the last woman standing in the 2015 and 2018 WSOP Main Events. She earned the 2015 GPI Female Player of the Year award and recorded a career-best tournament cash of $262,912 at the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open.
Her story has moved on since those breakthrough results. In a July 2025 announcement, Lucas said she was retiring from professional poker to pursue other ventures. She remains a familiar name in the game: the WPT included her in its announced June 2026 lineup for The Victor.
From Arizona student to lawyer and poker player
Minkin was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and moved to Arizona with her family as a child. She attended the University of Arizona, studied molecular and cellular biology, and initially planned to become a surgeon. As she explained in a 2015 Card Player interview, taking the LSAT changed that plan and led her to Arizona Summit Law School.
Her early legal career included medical malpractice defense work in Phoenix. Poker developed alongside it, first through family games and then through local casino cash games. She found competitive play appealing and gradually moved up in stakes.
Her father encouraged her to enter the 2013 Arizona State Poker Championship. She finished second to Joe Kuether for $151,983, a result that helped turn local poker sessions into trips around the tournament circuit. That was her breakthrough, although the GPI database also records a smaller cash from 2011.
The results that established her poker career
Minkin began 2015 by winning a preliminary event at the L.A. Poker Classic for $54,630. The following month, she finished third in the $3,500 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship for $262,912. The WPT player record confirms that result, which remains the largest single cash listed on her GPI profile.
The WSOP Main Event brought a different level of attention that summer. Minkin finished 29th for $211,821 and was the final woman remaining in the tournament. Her two biggest cashes of 2015 therefore came from separate events: the larger payout was at the WPT, while the WSOP run made her a familiar face to a wider poker audience.
Her season earned her the 2015 GPI Female Player of the Year award, recognizing her results across that year.
Selected milestones in Kelly Minkin’s career, including her 2025 announcement about leaving professional poker.
In 2018, she again became the last woman standing in the WSOP Main Event, finishing 50th for $156,265. Contemporaneous WSOP coverage confirms both the year and the result. Later that year, she placed third in the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble for $146,973.
Those finishes were deep runs in open tournaments. “Last woman standing” describes the highest-finishing woman in that particular event; it is not a separate tournament victory or a WSOP bracelet.
How she approached poker alongside a legal career
Minkin has described herself as naturally aggressive at the table. In her 2018 interview with Bernard Lee, she discussed wanting to challenge passive play, while also recognizing how demanding a full tournament schedule could be.
That distinction matters when looking at her career. She built a reputation through selective tournament trips while also working outside poker. In earlier interviews, she described the stability of legal work as a useful counterweight to the swings of the game.
For readers studying their own game, the relevant lesson is to understand when pressure works and when to adjust. Our poker tournament strategy guide explains the changing demands of tournament play; a player’s highlight reel alone cannot show the decisions behind an entire run.
Kelly Minkin net worth and tournament earnings
Kelly Minkin’s net worth is not publicly verified. Her GPI profile, listed under Kelly Lucas and checked on September 23, 2026, reports $1,598,135 in recorded tournament earnings. That is approximately $1.6 million in reported cashes, not a measure of her personal wealth.
Tournament payouts do not deduct all entry fees, re-entries, travel expenses, taxes or any share owed to backers. They also do not establish her cash-game results, legal income, business assets or liabilities. A reliable net-worth figure would need information beyond a tournament database.
Results sites can also differ in coverage and update timing. The total above is attributed to GPI so that readers can check the same record, rather than combine overlapping totals from several databases.
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Landen Lucas and the change of name
Landen Lucas is Kelly Minkin’s husband. In her 2025 announcement, she explicitly referred to him as her husband and said poker had brought them together. Landen is a former professional basketball player who also plays poker.
PokerNews records that she became a mother in 2021. Her current law-firm website identifies her as Kelly J. Lucas, née Kelly Minkin, and both GPI and WPT use Kelly Lucas on her player profile. Older tournament reports remain widely searchable under Minkin.
What Kelly Minkin is doing now?
In July 2025, Lucas announced that the upcoming WSOP Main Event would be her last and that she was retiring from professional poker. In the same post, she discussed founding the poker clothing business Triple Barrel, opening her own law firm and co-founding Fukui Labs.
Her legal practice, Kelly J. Lucas, PLLC, presents services for individuals and small businesses in Arizona. The firm’s public biography describes experience in business formation, personal-injury matters and commercial disputes.
The retirement announcement should be read in its stated context. In June 2026, the WPT named Minkin in the planned June 6 lineup for The Victor, its livestream cash-game series. That announcement documents a planned appearance; it does not, by itself, establish a return to a full professional tournament schedule.
Her GPI results list includes a 12th-place finish for $8,740 in the March 2025 Lone Butte Main Event and a $3,160 cash in the 2025 WSOP Millionaire Maker. Those are recorded tournament results, while the 2026 WPT announcement concerns a cash-game show.
Kelly Minkin FAQ
