If ever there were a poker player who could rival the Dos Equis guy, it is Dan Bilzerian. For evidence of this, you need merely check Bilzerian’s twitter feed, which features numerous pictures of hot girls, guns, luxury cars and movie appearances.
Given all of the cool things that Bilzerian can and has done, it’s no surprise to hear that his net worth is $100 million. And this puts him in the opposite situation as some world-famous poker players whom he shockingly said were broke. During an interview with CardPlayer, Bilzerian said the following:
Well, it’s kind of a degenerate group. I mean, people who play poker professionally; it kind of takes a special type of person to do that. You have to be able to take a real kick in the nuts, and your life is stressful all the time. It is really hard to be a professional poker player and not go broke. The problem is that when they are winning, they feel like they are going to continue winning at the same rate and when they are losing they want to win their money back. Also, once you play big it’s really hard to drop down in stakes.
Bilzerian went on to say that Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey have gone broke. Of course, there’s no proof of this until these players actually confirm their financial standing. But it’s still interesting to hear Bilzerian declare that both of these guys are broke since he has an inside track on the high stakes poker community.
Aside from talking about degenerate poker pros, Bilzerian also covered a number of other very interesting subjects during his interview. One theme that he stressed is how he’s not among the world’s best poker pros. Instead, Bilzerian sticks to playing against celebrities and rich fish so that he can maintain an edge.
He also discussed a poker game in which an opponent only wanted to bet planes and luxury cars such as Ferrari’s ($300k) and Bugatti’s ($1 million). Dealing in tangible assets at the poker table, rather than chips, is something that really threw Bilzerian off.
One more intriguing subject is Bilzerian’s staking empire. As some people know, he staked Jay Farber during his 2013 WSOP Main Event runner-up finish. With 20% of Farber’s action, Blitz actually scored over $1 million off the second place finish. Aside from Farber, Bilzerian has a lot more pros that he stakes and earns money from.
If you’re interested in seeing what else Blitz had to say, make sure to check out the CardPlayer interview that he did.
