Lisa Costello Comes Out Victorious at the WPT Ladies Championship

Las Vegas-based retired professional poker player, Lisa Costello, managed to scoop up the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Championship title with an improbable victory broadcast live on YouTube from the Wynn’s Encore Ballroom stage.

“This Is Such an Incredible Feeling.”

The player, who also won the Ladies Event title in 2014 at the Venetian and a final table bubble in the 2015 WSOP Ladies No Limit Hold’em Championship has so far gathered $309,400 from her passion for professional poker. 

The new “champ” title is, however, the largest lifetime cash title in her career. The title brought her a fresh win of $85,297, along with the prestigious trophy after she was down to five big blinds on the second day of the event. 

One day later, Costello managed to grab the chips of all the other 456 participating players. Talking about the experience, she explained that she was “so grateful” to be there after the previous day’s event that her win felt “unbelievable.” 

She further described her win as an incredible feeling, especially in the context of having played with “some incredible people” while still astonished about what had happened. 

Costello played against runner-up Ashley Sleeth, who is an ex-Ashey Sleethcontributor who also scooped up a World Series of Poker Circuit ring in 2019 and made an appearance as a guest on the CardsChat podcast. 

The final table of six also hosted Kathy Stahl who won $43,686 for the third position, Chris Read who took home $34,220, Aylar Lie with a $26,480 win for the fifth position, and Ada Lang who won $20,155 for the sixth position.

Costello Took a Break from Big Tournaments 

The player’s win came as a surprise as it followed a long hiatus at the end of a few busy years sprinkled with numerous Las Vegas professional poker events and tournaments. 

In a WTP interview, Costello explained that she had been a full-time pro poker player for two years about five or six years ago. Then, for the following years, she didn’t play much at all because she had lost the drive to “grind it out like I used to.”

Now, Costello feels that she can “pick and choose” all the tournaments she wishes to attend, which was also the case for the WPT Ladies Championship, which was the headliner of the week-long celebration of women in poker. 

The list of events included the invitation-only viewing party where select members of Poker League of Nations, Women’s Power, Women’s Poker Association, and Women in Poker Hall of Fame were invited to watch all four episodes of the 2022 WPT Ladies Championship that were broadcast on television. 

During the same week, the Ladies Mimosa Meet-Up Game hosted participants who played against one another for a chance to win seats at the prestigious $1,100 WPT Prime event in slash pots.