Ted & Michele Lawson Among Handful of Power Couples to Win WSOP Gold Bracelets
If you watched the World Series of Poker (WSOP) on ESPN back in 2004, there’s a good chance you saw Ted Lawson capture his gold bracelet. It happened in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at a final table that included Freddy Deeb, Howard Lederer, and Daniel Negreanu (Fun Fact: Chris Moneymaker finished 10th in the tournament).
Lawson, who is deep in the 2026 WSOP Europe Main Event in Prague, is a consummate grinder with just over $3 million in lifetime tournament earnings dating back to 2000, according to The Hendon Mob. That includes a career-high $500,00 for winning his bracelet.
What’s interesting is that he’s not the only bracelet winner in his family. His wife of over 40 years, Michele Lawson, is a player herself, and in November 2024, she topped a field of 1,293 runners to win the WSOP Online Bracelet Event #27: NLH Hold’em for $41,567 and her own piece of gold.
“It meant a lot to both her and me, because as a couple, we're like one of seven couples or whatever it is to both win WSOP gold bracelets,” Ted told PokerNews.
Indeed, there aren’t many bracelet-winning poker couples in the industry – Kristen & Alex Foxen and Liv Boeree & Igor Kurganov are two that jump to mind – but the Lawsons are among them in a poker journey 20 years in the making.
“My final table on ESPN became a classic, you know, because it played 1000 times just straight during the Poker Boom,” said Ted, who shared that after living in Las Vegas for a decade, the couple has relocated to Virginia. “We are still very much playing poker, the two of us at the WSOP.”
The Lawson’s Love Story
Michele was kind enough to share some details on how she and Ted became a poker-playing power couple, especially after marrying in 1983.
“We opened our first insurance agency shortly after. He wanted to make sure I got my insurance license first, or maybe he wouldn't have married me,” she said with a laugh. “We borrowed $10,000 from his sister and opened the doors. Ted sold used cars while I ran the agency. Since you need insurance to buy a car, he would send them to our agency to purchase insurance if they needed.”
They eventually grew that into 40 insurance agencies, and in order to serve their customers, they opened an insurance finance company with a partner, who they eventually bought out, to finance the insurance premiums.
“During this time, Ted was driving close to our house and was struck broadside by a large dump truck that ran a red light. He went through the passenger side window that was up and flew into the air, hitting the pavement. I was still pulling glass out of his head a month later. His dad drove by the accident scene, didn't recognize the car, and said that the guy was dead.”
A customer of theirs actually saw the accident and said it looked like a man being shot out of a cannon with garbage.
“Ted recovered, which was a miracle,” said Michele. We opened another insurance company and bought a tax company a few years later. In 1998, we took all these companies public on Nasdaq. When we went public, we made sure every single person in the company, down to the mail room people, got stock and stock options. We wanted to share this with all our employees since they helped bring this about. We retired many moons ago. It was a whirlwind ride from start to finish with many twists and turns.”
It was after that retirement that Ted started to play poker more seriously, a game Michele would later take up herself and find success. In fact, a month after winning her bracelet, she and Ted traveled to the Bahamas for the WSOP Paradise, where she final tabled Event #14: Super Saver $1M Invitational, ultimately finishing in eighth place for $19,400. She also had a deep run in Event #1: WSOP Mini Main Event, placing 29th of 2,031 entries for $18,390.
For now, Michele is patiently sitting on the sidelines of the €5,300 buy-in 2026 WSOP Europe Main Event, supporting her husband in his quest to win his second gold bracelet.
If he does, she’ll have to get another of her own to keep things equal.
