Vanessa Rousso: Professional Poker Player

Vanessa Ashley Rousso, born February 5, 1983, is a law student at the University of Miami and a professional poker player. Born in White Plains, New York, Rousso has dual citizenships with the United States and France. She has earned money as a professional poker player since 2005, is a member of Team PokerStars, and a represents GoDaddy.com in television ads. Vanessa was her high school class valedictorian and graduated from Duke University in December 2003.

Actually, she graduated early from Duke University after two and a half years with a major in economics, and began law school in 2004. During Law School at the University of Miami School of Law, she served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Law Review. A poker player since the age of five, Vanessa began serious poker tournament play during her summer break from law school, where she was in the top 5% of her law school class.

As of 2009, Rousso had finished in the money in several professional live poker events and had earned over $2,100,000 in career earnings. She had placed in the money a cumulative total of seven times in the 2005, 2006 and 2008 World Series of Poker. In 2007, she had earned over $700,000 with a second place finish in the main event of the World Championship of Online Poker, however, in the 2008 tournament, she only placed 625th out of 6844 entrants in the Main event. At the age of 26, she ranks among the top five women in poker history in terms of all-time money winnings. In addition to being one of the game's foremost sex symbols, she has been a pro-gambling activist on both the national and state level.