--- title: This National Spelling Bee Champion Turned His Childhood Triumph Into a Lucrative Poker Career. Now He's Getting Into Cryptocurrency description: How Pratyush Buddiga went from national spelling bee champion to professional poker player to cryptocurrency. authors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 453 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum published: '2018-05-25T13:35:44.000Z' modified: '2024-05-08T05:00:42.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - National Spelling Bee word_count: 839 canonical: https://money.com/national-spelling-bee-pratyush-buddiga-poker-crypto/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![180525-pratyush-buddiga-featured](https://img.money.com/2018/05/180525-pratyush-buddiga-featured.jpg) When Pratyush Buddiga won the Scripps National Spelling Bee back in 2002, he got much more than a [$12,000 prize](http://www.espn.com/gen/news/2002/0530/1388949.html) and a slightly awkward [photo op](https://www.cardschat.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pratyush-Buddiga-spelling-bee-and-poker-champ-609x456.jpg) with then-President George W. Bush. He walked away with a crash course in competitive skills and a lasting addiction to being No. 1. Over the past 16 years, Buddiga's career path has diverged from those of his fellow spellebrities (that's what they're actually called). Now 29, he's well-known for being a poker player. He retired last summer with [millions of dollars](http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=164580) in wins under his belt, and he's now pursuing a career in cryptocurrency. In a way, Buddiga's path to success all started with the 2002 bee, when he was just a brace-faced 13-year-old wearing a [too-big polo shirt](https://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.money.com/wp-content/uploads%2F2016%2F05%2F160524-2002-pratyush-buddiga.jpg%3Fquality%3D85&w=800&q=85) and trying to spell prospicience. "Everything I've done since then has stemmed from that," he tells Money. "It was such a seminal moment in the sense that I've always had that to look back on and be like, 'OK, well, you can do this.'" ## Understanding the Buzz Buddiga's bee origin story is simple. As an elementary schooler with a competitive streak, one day he caught the bee airing on ESPN and decided he wanted to win it. By seventh grade, he was putting everything he had into spelling. For hours a day, Buddiga's mom would quiz him directly from the dictionary, asking every word on every page and marking the ones he got wrong. He memorized the [*Paideia*](http://www.hexco.com/what-is-the-difference-between-spell-it-and-paideia/) list of practice words; he dove into Greek and Latin. By 2002, Buddiga had worked his way to the national championship in Washington, D.C. Up against 249 other students, he [breezed through](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/05/31/at-13-the-master-of-mysterious-words/8a070371-4586-43a8-956b-47a0028d42f8/?utm_term=.73d7011552bd) words like grobian ("a slovenly crude often buffoonish individual," [according to Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grobian)), [oubliette](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oubliette) ("a dungeon with an opening only at the top") and [thremmatology](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thremmatology) ("the science of breeding animals and plants under domestication"). [Prospicience](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prospicience), or "the act of looking forward," nabbed him the championship. Victory was sweet: "It's probably still one of the best moments of my life," he says. Scripps [awarded him](https://web.archive.org/web/20150225021746/http://www.scripps.com/press/details?id=515) with $12,000, which Buddiga [told reporters](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/05/31/at-13-the-master-of-mysterious-words/8a070371-4586-43a8-956b-47a0028d42f8/?utm_term=.73d7011552bd) he planned to spend on *Star Wars* books. But he also remembers one of the coolest perks was that Domino's later delivered free pizza to his classroom. "For the rest of middle school and high school, everyone just sort of knows you as the kid who won the spelling bee," he says. ![180525-pratyush-buddiga-spelling-bee](https://img.money.com/2018/05/180525-pratyush-buddiga-spelling-bee.jpg) *Pratyush Buddiga, a 13-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colorado, accepts the first place trophy from Kenneth W. Lowe, President and Chief Executive Officer of The E.W. Scripps Company May 30, 2002 after spelling prospicience to win the 75th annual National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.* ## Putting on His Poker Face Next, Buddiga won the geography-themed [AAA Travel Challenge](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20050509005931/en/Colorado-New-Jersey-New-York-Students-Win) as a sophomore. He then went on to Duke University to study economics, which quickly proved to be a humbling experience. "I went from being a big fish in small pond to realizing, 'Hey, there are a lot of smart kids out there and you have to work really hard to just keep up,'" he says. (Buddiga has [also written about](https://medium.com/@pratyushbuddiga/perfectionism-and-the-fear-of-embarrassment-55cb988fbebe) the pressure of being perfect.) It was there where Buddiga picked up poker. Well, actually, it was in New York — he was there for a school-sponsored finance program but found he didn't like it, so he started playing cards. He got really good, really fast, and went pro after he graduated college in 2011. The change was welcome. "The one thing I sort of missed after the geography competition ended was a competition where there are winners and losers at the end," he says. "For a lot of people, they have the gambling instinct or \[like\] the prestige or the glamour. But for me, it was just like, 'OK, this is a competition.'" Buddiga doesn't like to discuss the specifics of how much he earned as a poker player, warning that "the prize money looks a lot more impressive than it really is." But there are clues online about how much he likely earned. In 2013, ESPN reporter Darren Rovell [tweeted](https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/340161595969789952) that Buddiga had "made $300K in his career and $34K so far this year." [Card Player puts](https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-players/259160-pratyush-buddiga) his lifetime winnings at $6.4 million; he's still No. 76 on the [U.S. all-time money list](http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/ranking/194/?find_name=buddiga). ![180525-pratyush-buddiga-poker-champ](https://img.money.com/2018/05/180525-pratyush-buddiga-poker-champ.jpg) *Pratyush Buddiga, 2016 Super High Roller Bowl, Aria Hotel & Casino* ## From Bee to Bitcoin These days, Buddiga has gone from raking in the cash to trying to figure out how to invest it. He lives in Seattle, but recently traveled back to New York City for Blockchain Week, a cryptocurrency-focused conference. Understanding cryptocurrency has presented yet another challenge for Buddiga. He says he loves learning about new topics — the arduous process of going from "the 20th percentile in something to the 99th percentile," just like he did with spelling all those years ago. Buddiga's long-term goal is to work for a fund or start his own. And even though finance may be totally different from spelling — or poker, for that matter — he can't shake the impact his 2002 victory had on him. "When I face down times in poker or in investing or whatever it is, I always have this feeling that ultimately I can get through it because I have before," he says. 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