Posts Tagged ‘Tobey Maguire’

Is Molly Bloom Finally done being the “Poker Princess”

Monday, December 16th, 2013

She hasn’t won a major tournament, been a high stakes player or done anything else significant in poker. Still, Molly Bloom has found a way to grace poker headlines off and on for the past few years.

Known to many as the “Poker Princess,” Bloom has been running some of poker’s most high-profile games. But she took things way too far in helping the Russian mob organize underground poker outings at New York’s Plaza hotel. Seeing as how the ring raked over $100 million, Bloom and the other 33 inductees were facing some serious charges.

You might say that Bloom got off with a pretty light sentence because she recently pleaded guilty to the charges against her. The 35-year-old will now face up to six months in jail, and must pay $125,000 in fines. Given that she was facing decades in prison, this is a much more favorable deal.

So now the question must be asked, is Molly Boom finally done with this whole Poker Princess thing? She first burst into the limelight after a major celebrity poker ring was uncovered. Bloom had been organizing games for such A-Listers as Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio. Prestige and millions were a plenty at these glamorous poker nights.

However, this got busted up when a hedge fund manager named Brad Ruderman was found to have lost $5.2 million in the poker ring. Ruderman was guilty of running a Ponzi scheme, and he used a good portion of his clients’ money to play poker with. That said, the investors leveled a lawsuit at members of the poker ring so they could recoup the losses.

The Hollywood operation earned Molly Bloom fame. But the Russian mob gambling ring put her through a lot of legal trouble. Given the myriad of legal troubles she recently dealt with, we can only hope that Bloom has put the poker world behind her.

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Molly Bloom looking to rat out Hollywood High Stakes Poker Games

Friday, July 26th, 2013

Molly Bloom became well known for her involvement in underground high stakes poker games that featured Hollywood’s elite and famous. But now that she’s had time to gather incriminating and/or embarrassing information on these stars, they are sweating bullets. Bloom is currently working on a memoir that is sure to reveal some dirty little secrets.

The “Poker Princess” hosted card parties in the past for celebrities like Toby Maguire, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck. She was also involved in a completely different poker ring that was run by the Russian mob. And while Bloom faces charges for her involvement in this ring, her focus appears to be on ratting out celebrities like Maguire and Damon.

The 33-year-old plans to reveal game-changers like what certain celebrities do when they’re holding good or bad cards. Maguire is said to be a top celebrity poker player, so it’s likely that he doesn’t want Bloom explaining his tells to the world.

Other aspects that Bloom wants to squeal on include Matt Damon once losing $25,000 in a single night (not bad for high stakes standards), how the buy-in for some cash games was as high as $100,000, and some of the locations where the games were held, including Tobey Maguire’s L.A. mansion.

Taking everything into account, it’s doubtful that Molly Bloom really has enough insight into poker to accurately pin Maguire and others’ tells. However, it’s a guarantee that she’s got some interesting stories to tell from games that involved many of Hollywood’s elite. The only question is how long it will take for Bloom to release her memoirs, seeing as how she’s currently struggling with charges stemming from the Russian-run gambling ring.

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Hollywood High Stakes Poker Saga ends for Ponzi Victims

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

For quite some time now, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the high stakes poker ring that involved Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. The ring made worldwide headlines after a crooked hedge fund manager named Bradley Ruderman lost $5.2 million to the players at these games.

After defrauding his clients, Ruderman was arrested by federal authorities and forced to spill everything he knew about the poker ring. One of the most telling points included when he told authorities that Maguire was “a winner and the best player.” He may have been right too since it’s estimated that the former Spiderman actor earned $30-$40 million from the high stakes poker games.

Moving past Maguire, those who fell for Ruderman’s Ponzi scheme finally received some good news regarding the $5.2 million they were seeking. Now the investors won’t get everything back because the poker players were unaware that Ruderman’s money was fraudulently earned. However, they will receive $1.75 million, which is about a third of what was lost in the poker games.

The lawsuit against those involved in the case was settled out of court, and bankruptcy trustee Howard Ehrenberg discussed this by saying, “All of the poker defendant cases are settled. The settlement of every poker related case without having had to incur the cost of taking any of them to trial means that the fund available for the victims has been maximized.”

One player who will be paying back a portion of the money is Magure, since he’ll owe $80k to the Ponzi victims. Others who are on the hook for repaying the scammed investors include High Stakes Poker commentator Gable Kaplan, record label owner Cody Leibel, and The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes.

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Tobey Maguire – Biggest Poker Winner Ever?

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

If you’re like 99.9% of the rest of the world, you didn’t realize that Tobey Maguire was a serious poker player. Sure he had shown up to events in the past just like other poker celebrities like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck – who are more celebrities than players – but you’d have never guessed that he was actually a force in the high stakes scene.

But the secret is out now after Maguire was named in a lawsuit involving many other celebrities. And what’s really shocking are the stories that have come out after the lawsuit, such as one claiming Maguire may have earned enough to be the biggest poker winner ever! Before we talk about that though, let’s get to the heart of the matter.

Maguire and several other actors like Damon and Affleck are caught up in the L.A. poker scene, which sees games played around many of the city’s hotspots. But actors aren’t the only ones who show up to these games since pros like Dan Bilzerian and “rich” businessmen such as former hedge fund manager Brad Ruderman also come calling. Ruderman is of particular interest in this story because he recently went to prison for bilking investors out of millions of dollars.

And this directly affects Maguire because he supposedly won around $311k off of Ruderman before he went to prison. With investors having lost their life savings to this hedge fund conman, they have come after Maguire for some of the winnings.

After this story broke, RadarOnline.com reported that Maguire had been winning around $1 million every month for three years in these games. They then estimated that Maguire may have won anywhere from $30 to $40 million playing high stakes poker. And while this number is completely unverifiable, assuming it was accurate, the Spiderman actor could possibly be the biggest poker winner of all-time!

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