World Poker Tour

John Roveto “Kicker“

Hometown
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Birthday
February 20

Total Winnings
$1,019,262

John Roveto sure knows the meaning of competition. Being in the National Football League will do that. John was always an athletic individual, playing football in his youth and college football at Louisiana University. He played there from 1976 to 1979, then left college to play professionally. He was recruited to be the placekicker in the NFL for the Chicago Bears, where he played from 1981 to 1983. Though much of his job consisted of waiting on the sidelines for his moment, the pressure was intense and the competition was at the highest level.

After his years of football, John settled down in the Atlanta, Georgia area with his family. He has three children and one on the way with his fiancé. Part of settling down involved working outside of the sports industry, so among other jobs, he purchased an automobile lot. Currently, it is leased out to someone else so that he has the time to travel the poker tournament circuit. Poker was a game in which John found that he had the abilities to compete and the longing to play a tough game that wasn’t physically taxing. Poker has been it, and he has tournament cashes dating back to 2004 to prove it.

John has six World Series of Poker cashes on his list of accomplishments, numerous final tables at events around the United States, and more than $1.3 million in tournament earnings thus far. He has found particular success on the World Poker Tour in 2008. First, he finished in a respectable 11th place at the WPT Borgata Poker Classic in January of 2008. It was at the Five Star World Poker Classic that he did even better. He placed third in the seniors event, then bought in to the WPT World Championship where he finished also in third place, but this time at a WPT final table in one of the biggest and most prestigious tournaments of the year. He made nearly $1 million with that finish, so it may be awhile before that Atlanta car lot sees John’s face again.