The Top Poker Streamers in North America

Kevin Martin (Canada)

Kicking off our list, we start in the Great White North and one of the more visible poker streamers from GGPoker Team Online is Kevin Martin. Originally finding his fame from appearing on Big Brother Canada Seasons 3 – placing 9th, and Season 5, winning the entire thing. The Calgary, Alberta native started playing in 2014 before partnering up with the Staple brothers in a stream house, where the trio broadcasted themselves playing poker to the world.

Kevin joined Team PokerStars in 2016, before jumping to rival PartyPoker in 2019, and then heading to GGPoker in 2020, which he is still affiliated with today.

Kevin streams on Twitch on a regular basis on weekends to broadcast the bigger online tournaments, but does not often go live during the week. He’ll typically average 400 to 500 viewers per session, often eclipsing the 1,000 mark when he is running deep or playing in a marquee tournament.

Jaime Staples (Canada)

Jaime Staples has been a staple of the Twitch poker community for a long time – a member of one of the original streamhouses of the late 2010’s, Jaime along with his brother Matt and Kevin Martin, whom we’ll profile next, shared a home in Montreal, Quebec where the three broadcasted poker on an almost continuous basis. PartyPoker noticed, and signed Jaime to their online team in 2019 – to which he is still a member of today.

Staples is live most days to some of his over 150,000 subscribers to his Twitch channel. He’s seen some of the biggest poker streams in terms of viewership over the years, but recently his numbers have been going down, averaging around 100 people per stream this year. Still, one of the OG poker streamers of his day, Staples is still producing lots of great poker content online.

Daniel Negreanu (Canada)

Daniel Negreanu hasn’t made a name for himself in the world of online poker streams, but Kid Poker does stream when he is in locations that permit online poker, and his streams tend to be some of the biggest on the internet.When major series occur on GGPoker, or some of the biggest weekly tournaments, Negreanu pulls insane viewers to his streams, often getting tens of thousands of eyes on his videos. 

Born in Toronto, but now living in Las Vegas, poker fans don’t get to tag along with Negreanu all that often as he isn’t able to play GGPoker in the US.  When he travels and goes live, his fans can’t wait to watch him battle in the biggest buy-in tournaments online.

Arlie Shaban (Canada)

Another former Big Brother contestant, Arlie Shaban has dedicated himself to poker and now streams on an almost daily basis from Toronto. Playing on PokerStars Ontario, the fenced-in regulated arm of PokerStars, Shaban entertains his fans through his high energy, funny, and enlightening streams where he regularly dominates the competition. 

Averaging over 200 viewers a stream, Shaban connects with his community well which is a big reason why they keep coming back to watch. Shaban started streaming all the way back in 2017, and has steadily grown his following to over 56,000 people who follow Arlie on Twitch.

Evan “Gripsed” Jarvis (Canada)

Evan Jarvis is one of the longer active members of the ACR Stormers team who has been broadcasting poker on a regular basis since 2020. His knowledge of the game educates his viewers with every hand that is played out, and he does it in a way that is engaging and fun to watch. Regularly mixing up poker content with Marbles and slot giveaways, he interacts personally with his audience – a testament to his loyal following.

While he doesn’t pull the numbers some of the bigger streamers do, his average viewership of 100 to 200 puts him in a solid category stream to stream – but by going live almost daily since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has earned his spot on the ACR Stormer team.

Brad Owen (US)

Not all poker streams are on Twitch, and one of the biggest poker vloggers makes our list as we feature Brad Owen. The American poker player vlogs most of his live poker playing on his weekly poker videos that garner hundreds of thousands of views in only a few days, allowing him to monetize his YouTube content like few can. 

Starting his pro career in 2003, Owen lives in Las Vegas and frequents the biggest games in Sin City on a daily basis. Getting to follow him along in his travels on the Las Vegas Strip, to other casinos in the US and around the world, Owen may not have the live viewership, but his community grows every day.

Aaron Barone (US)

Aaron Barone may not be as well known in the poker world as some of the other streamers we have profiled, but Barone is someone you should check out if you are looking for a chill, laid back but higher stakes stream.  The American now calls Vancouver home as a member of 888 Poker’s online stream team, Barone also is a MTT coach as part of the Upswing Poker team. 

He got his start playing low stakes MTT online back in 2012, and has steadily grown his online presence since. Today, Barone regularly streams as part of his commitment to the 888 brand, and his Twitch viewership has grown over time, with streams today averaging 400 viewers.

Aaron has not made an impact in the live game to the same extent, although that could be changing now with a 326th place finish in this year’s Main Event. The $45k he won took his live earnings up to $59k – an amount he embraced by winning a shirt with a copy of his Hendon Mob on it. 

Needless to say, criticism isn’t something that affects Aaron negatively – he embraces it which you’ll find if you watch Aaron dominate on the poker tables.

ACR (US)

Our final stop is not an individual poker stream per say, but rather a poker channel on Twitch. America’s Cardroom has been around since the turn of the century, and while they have been a controversial poker room for their lack of adherence to US laws, they have become a force in the online poker community. From their popular OSS – Online Super Series – that runs multiple times a year, to one of the biggest online poker tournaments online – The Venom – ACR uses their standing to push the boundary of what is possible with online poker, and one of the reasons has been their Twitch channel. 

Three times a week, Justin Kelly, aka FatTrain, hosts the ACR show – a talk show of sorts where tens of thousands of dollars of poker tickets are given away to the more than 500 viewers the show attracts today. Coupled with live streaming of major online tournaments like the Venom and Phil’s Thrill – a weekly $10k online tournament that some of the biggest poker names play – and you can quickly see why ACR is one of the biggest Twitch streams in North America.

This is not to say that it’s the biggest Twitch stream of major online poker rooms – but most of the others concentrate on live events that do not take place in North America (PokerStars being the exception for the NAPT in November and when they stream from The Bahamas as their streams attract thousands of viewers).  When it comes to North America, due to the laws in US, most of the major names have to call Canada home to bring you the best poker action online.