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Dan Bilzerian is making headlines in the poker world again. The Instagram playboy is being challenged to what’s being called “the biggest poker game ever played” – all stemming from the aftermath of claims i n his new book, The Setup.
Back in June, the Instagram playbook announced that his new book was finally finished after a series of rewrites. Bilzerian has been relatively quiet the last year, focused on steering his company, IGNITE, towards profitability after what he called a “difficult transition year” in 2020.
When announcing his book on Instagram, Bilzerian pledged to “get ready for the tea,” saying that he named names in the book as it pertains to some of the holes in his life story – like how he made his millions.
Turns out, Bilzerian did name names.
The son of a wealthy corporate raider, Dan Bilzerian is often criticized by the public at large as a hedonistic trust fund kid. He always “said he had a trust fund because he did,” which he didn’t get access to until age 35 – years after his success as a poker player. Yet he’s always maintained that he’s more self-made than most would think, claiming he’s made his money from playing poker.
The claim raised eyebrows from the masses attempting to poke holes in the real story behind his wealth
Bilzerian’s book details the Xs and Os of exactly how he made millions playing poker: He started playing small at his fraternity and online while at the University of Florida, then a gambling boat in Florida, then graduated to playing in poker rooms around Vegas where he played “like Matt Damon in Rounders.” After playing nonstop around Vegas and other poker circuits in the wake of the World Series Of Poker newbie boom, Bilzerian eventually got invited to private games in Hollywood – including Molly Bloom’s now-infamous Molly’s Game (which inspired the book and movie) by where Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ben Affleck played.
Bilzerian claims he minted his fortune on the felt by playing in high-stakes private home games similar to Molly’s Game.
The question remained: How do you make that much money playing poker relatively out of the limelight?
Against high profile gamblers with deep pockets.
Bilzerian’s recently published autobiography details exactly who he was playing poker with: An assortment of well-off businessmen, hedge fund managers, and Hollywood types, including director Nick Cassavetes, businessman Sam Magid, the owner of Cirque du Soleil, and a billionaire Alec Gores, the founder of the private equity firm The Gores Group.
Dan Bilzerian vs Alec Gores – The poker backstory
Bilzerian’s book details the intensity of the poker matches between him and Gores, whom Bilzerian refers to as “AG”. In the book, Bilzerian claims the first time he showed up to his fifty million dollar estate in Bel Air, he asked him how much he wanted to play for:
“A million? Five million? Whatever.”
They started with a $500,000 buy-in. Bilzerian says ended up beating AG. for $1,600,000 and then a week later for $2,500,000. Another account details Bilzerian winning $5,500,000 in a heads-up game against the billionaire.
The two kept battling. Four days later, the two played again: This time with Bilzerian buying in for $2 million and AG buying in for a staggering $50 million, “announced with a conviction I found unsettling,” Dan writes. Bilzerian says that he was playing “outside the limits of my bankroll” but didn’t care because he had to take the risk. At one point, Bilzerian claims they were starting at $5K/10K blinds, going up to $10,000/$25,000 blinds “within the first hour.”
One night, during a battle, they even played for $3.3 million on a high card flip.
According to the book, Bilzerian played “hyper aggressively” against AG, going up $8 million in a night. He tipped the dealer $300,000 and walked away with $7.7 million. AG allegedly paid a day later – “He didn’t even flinch about it,” Bilzerian adds.
Bilzerian headed to Cabo to celebrate. More victories were to come, as Bilzerian details in the book.
Dan Bilzerian vs Alec Gores – $100 million poker match on PPV?
Bilzerian is currently making media rounds promoting his book.
On the Nelk Boys Full Send podcast, Bilzerian talks about playing heads-up with AG while Mark Wahlberg – AG’s neighbor – watched. Bilzerian tells the Nelk Boys that he took down the billionaire for a total of “around $40-$50 million over eight sessions.”
“It was the f*cking craziest thing, man. I remember one time sitting there with $18 million in front of me. He always had me covered – of course, he would buy in and big d*ck me every time. He’d buy-in for $50 million and I’d buy-in for one or two. There was one point where I was beating him – we had been playing for two days straight and I had $18 million in front of me. He said all-in and I had to make a decision for $18 million.
It was f*cking stressful. My hair was falling out. It was a very unenjoyable experience even though I was winning money, it was stressful. Because I knew that if I lost, I would come back and play again. I would keep playing this guy until I was broke because we were playing for so much money a hand.
Watch the story here, which is queued to the time-stamp where it starts:
Bilzerian followed up on the story with a new development on Logan Paul’s podcast, “Impaulsive”. In a recent episode, Bilzerian reveals that AG was alerted to the story and claimed, via text to Dan, that wasn’t taken for that much money.
“That guy Alec [Gores], he saw my Nelk Boys podcast and he texts me. I said I beat him for like $40-$50 million, and he’s like, ‘oh, the number wasn’t that high’. He’s like, ‘I wanna play you heads-up, let’s see who has the bigger balls for $25 million apiece.’
“I text him back… I said, dude I beat you for $5.5 million, for $7.7 million, I beat you for $10.8, $12 million – whatever. I beat you like four or five other times for like small numbers. It was 100% percent over $40 million.”
“I said I’ll play you for $25 million at the Aria if you wanna wire money over,” Bilzerian tells Logan Paul.
“And then he was like, ‘I don’t wanna play you unless it’s for at least $50 million.’ I was like, “I’ll wire in $50 million to the Aria in 10 days if you wanna play, and we can televise it if you want. And so he’s challenged me twice, so I think we might play for $100 million. It might be the craziest game ever.”
“I want to Pay-Per-View the motherf**er. It would be the biggest poker game ever played. And the beauty of that is it like shuts the f*ck up everybody that was talking sh*t like you can’t win this much money in poker.”
Bilzerian adds that he has receipts for the wire payments.
We’ll see if the $100 million heads-up poker game ever comes together. It’d certainly be electric witnessing the biggest heads-up poker match of all time.
Watch the clip below in which Bilzerian. It sounds like there’s a strong possibility this happens.