Brent Carter, Two-Time WSOP Bracelet Winner, Dies at 77
The 1990s standout finished third in the 1995 Main Event, won two bracelets, and recorded more than $3.0 million in lifetime cashes.
Brent Carter, a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a 1990s poker legend, has died at 77. His partner of 32 years, Jane Paquette, said the exact cause of death was not revealed.
Paquette said he was one of the kindest people she ever knew, that he never accepted anything for helping someone, and that when he won something, everyone got something. She also said he had suffered several heart attacks and strokes in the past.
He won his first WSOP gold bracelet in 1991 in the $1,500 no-limit hold’em event for $156,800, then added a second in 1994 in the $1,500 limit Omaha event for $83,400. PokerNews also noted that he finished third in the 1995 WSOP Main Event for $302,750, which was his career-high score.
That Main Event result was part of a broader WSOP record that also included four third-place finishes and three runner-up finishes. The Hendon Mob listed $3,099,501 in lifetime tournament earnings dating back to 1986, and his last recorded cash came in 2015.
Paquette said Carter’s poker career began at the Stardust with the Stairway to the Stars tournaments, where he learned on the job. She said he mostly played Omaha but played everything, and he was the kind of player who studied schedules closely enough to point out when events overlapped and kept some players from entering both.
Before poker became his full-time focus, Carter raced harness horses. He later compared the two worlds by saying both came down to strategy, and that the best horse or the best hand does not always win.
His later years also included a federal case tied to the New York State Gaming Commission. In 2021 he was charged with spreading a hoax after allegedly mailing suspicious white powder and threatening letters to the commission’s headquarters in Schenectady, New York; he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served in a June 2023 update.
Paquette said she met him in 1994 and they were together almost from the first day. She said he took food to homeless people two or three times a week and could talk to anyone.
