The Moneymaker Effect is the name of the sudden growth in interest in poker after the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. The effect is considered to have begun in 2003, after Chris Moneymaker, a 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee, United States, outlasted 838 other players to win the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event along with the US$2.5 million prize and the title of World Champion. Moneymaker suddenly became the new poster boy for poker, inspiring potential players to believe that "staying at home in front of a computer screen could be more profitable than going to work." His improbable win also started a new era in poker in which "a nobody could topple the feared pros".

Prior to the 2003 World Series of Poker, Moneymaker won a $39 poker satellite tournament on the online poker cardroom, PokerStars, which entered him into a larger satellite with a grand prize of a World Series of Poker package for that year's Main Event, a poker tournament with a $10,000 buy-in. Moneymaker won the package, and played his first live tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada at the 2003 World Series of Poker. Now a member of Team PokerStars, his biography on their website notes, "His story sparked a tidal wave of interest in poker, a phenomenon that’s been nicknamed the 'Moneymaker Effect' [...] he’ll always be remembered for that epic victory in 2003. It’s a legacy he is clearly proud of and one that’s given him the kind of life all poker players dream of." Moneymaker's story of how an amateur beat some of the best poker players in the world and win a multi-million dollar cash prize is believed to have inspired millions of people to begin playing poker, both online and in card rooms around the world.

At the 2004 World Series of Poker the following year, a semi-professional player, Greg Raymer, also qualified online and went on to win that year's Main Event, along with its $5 million grand prize, in a larger field of 2,576 players.

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