Is Ossi Ketola Good at Poker – And How Much Is He Worth?

Who is Ossi Ketola?

Ossi Ketola is the founder of CSGOEmpire, a website which lets players gamble on skins for the esports game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). Players can bet on roulette-style games and win in-game skins, altering the appearance of their characters and weapons. There’s also a buying and selling marketplace on the CSGOEmpire website.

Although Ossi Ketola is his real name, he goes by several aliases. Four years after starting his own business, Ketola ran an AMA on Reddit as ‘Monarch’, the same name used on the official CGSOEmpire website. Elsewhere, he’s believed to be known as both Joopii and dossiossi.

His real name is being used at the poker tables, where he made a huge impression at the Triton Poker Series in late 2024. And, in particular, his heads-up duel with fellow poker amateur Vladimir ‘Gambledore’ Korzinin.

Ossi Ketola Net Worth

When he began his CSGOEmpire business in 2015, Ossi Ketola had a low net worth, taking out an €11,000 loan and working from his bedroom. Back then, he and his small team worked remotely, meeting online just as players do at the best online poker sites. But a decade has made a big difference, and he now has enough money to play at some of the most high-profile poker tournaments in the world.

Ossi Ketola paid $159,000 to join the Triton event where he came second, but that wasn’t his first super high roller. He’s already brought in nearly $5 million in tournament wins and is clearly not a professional poker player.

Playing at such high stakes without a skill edge would suggest his net worth is in the multi-millions, putting him in a position where he can afford to enter these events simply because he wants to.

In 2023, Valve reportedly made $1 billion from Counter-Strike cases. This figure is for the actual designer of the game, rather than a third-party website like CSGOEmpire, but demonstrates the volume of players spending money on skins.

Is Ossi Ketola Good at Poker?

His second-place finish for nearly $3 million has definitely been the highlight of his short poker career so far, but it wasn’t the only event Ketola cashed in at the Triton Poker Series in Monte-Carlo.

Here’s a look at his tournament cashes:

His total tournament winnings heading into 2025 totalled $4,790,000 – enough to put him sixth on Finland’s all-time money list, just ahead of 2024 PokerGO Tour PLO Series champion Samuli Sipila.

It’s a small sample size from a congested period, and all at ultra-high stakes, which means fairly limited field sizes. But the results are there; it wasn’t a one-off.

Ossi Ketola Poker Playing Style

As well as a deep involvement in esports, Ossi Ketola is also a chess player. Ketola’s online chess record shows a single loss, but it’s indicative that he has an active interest in skill-based games.

So, how has this translated to the felt?

We only have a few tournaments to go off of, and that in itself tells us that Ketola is relatively inexperienced. He has a strong interest in esports and chess, but high-stakes poker is new territory for him.

And, in Monte-Carlo, you could see that. He dressed in brilliant white furry jackets and hats, wore dark shades, and played on his phone too much. At times, he fumbled with the blinds and put in an incorrect number of chips. Other players were light on his transgressions, eager not to scare away the less-experienced player.

He made errors with his decisions, too. In a hand against Samuel Mullur, Ketola held A♠️3♣️ on the 9♥️9♦️3♥️6♥️A♥️ board. His failure to bet the flop or turn allowed his opponent to catch a one-card flush with K♦️8♥️, and Ketola check-called for half pot on the river. Raising or 3-betting pre-flop then failing to follow up with aggression seemed to be a pattern for Ketola.

His looks and demeanor bring a fresh excitement to the tables, and the only reason he wasn’t spoken about more was because Gambledore stole the show.

But they both had their moments throughout the series. While Gambledore announced “Now the magic happens” before rivering a split pot, Ketola went for the very direct “I will win”.

In the final hand of the $150,000 event, Ketola lost an all-in against 7♠️2♠️ – but Gambledore claimed he only ran with it because it’s Ketola’s favorite hand. It’s the kind of play you’d expect only at the softest online poker sites.

The heads-up match could’ve gone either way. And Ketola was extremely entertaining.

Ketola Controversy

In December 2024, a video was posted by a YouTuber named Coffeezilla, famous for his deep dives on internet and crypto scam artists. This video was titled ‘I Got Bribed By Casinos, But I Exposed Them Instead’, and featured Ossi Ketola.

Reportedly, Coffeezilla – real name Stephen Findeisen – was offered $20,000 by CSGOEmpire to help expose their competitors. Instead, he turned the spotlight onto CSGOEmpire themselves.

This came on the back of Ketola’s company disrupting a major esports tournament, with protestors storming the Royal Arena stage as part of a stunt CGSOEmpire later apologized for.

We’re sorry. pic.twitter.com/Iq6J3Mq24Z

— CSGOEmpire (@CSGOEmpire) April 6, 2024

But the company is still going strong, and so these setbacks don’t appear to have affected Ossi Ketola’s net worth.

Conclusion

Ossi Ketola is an amateur poker player who is willing to take on some of the most fierce high-stakes players in the world.

He made a number of errors at the final tables of the Triton Poker Series which typically wouldn’t be expected of top-level players, but he also managed a second-place finish for nearly $3 million in addition to other noteworthy cashes.

If he keeps working on developing his game, Ketola could be around for the long haul.

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