The $100million heads-up match between GGPoker ambassador Dan Bilzerian and billionaire businessman Alec Gores is being held up because Gores hasn’t ponied up his half of the monster pot, Bilzerian claimed this week.
Who are these dudes? #GGParty #WSOP https://t.co/5ncq1zMgXU
— GGPoker (@GGPoker) November 6, 2021
As we reported last month, millionaire playboy Bilzerian revealed that Gores had challenged him twice, the Israeli private equity investor initially stating: “I wanna play you heads-up, let’s see who has the bigger balls for $25 million apiece.”
That in itself would be one of the richest poker battles ever seen. However, when Bilzerian offered to wire the money, Gores changed the terms:
“I don’t wanna play you unless it’s for at least $50 million,” he is reported to have said. Bilzerian replied: “I’ll wire in $50 million to the Aria in 10 days if you wanna play, and we can televise it if you want.”
“He hasn’t wired the money”
This week, Bilzerian gave an update on the proposed battle, calling Gores out. “I’ve tried to set it up twice already, but he hasn’t wired the money,” claims Bilzerian.
Dan’s own money is believed by many to have come from a rather less legal version of Gores’ (pictured below) own background of leveraged buyouts.
Bilzerian has always refuted claims he was a trust-fund baby and says that most of his fortune was won at the poker tables. Gores provided “$40-$50million” of it in private games.
That claim, made in Bilzerian’s autobiography, The Setup, and repeated on the Logan Paul podcast, appears to have angered Gores.
He texted Dan saying, “the number wasn’t that high”, leading to the $100million challenge.
“For $100million I’d have to sell a bit”
In Las Vegas this week for a private GGPoker party during the WSOP, Bilzerian told Pokernews’ Tiffany Michelle, “…he basically challenged me twice and I accepted twice, so I’m just kind of waiting for him to pony up.”
“I said OK to $50 [million],” Bilzerian explained to Michelle, “adding, “I’d probably do $100 [million] if he wanted, but I’d have to sell a little bit.”
As to the venue, the social media star repeated that he’d “like to televise it. “So, for me, maybe PokerGO, Aria, something like that,” he added, referencing the popular highstakes venue in Las Vegas.
As for fans hoping to see Bilzerian in action at the World Series of Poker, that seems unlikely.
Bilzerian and Negreanu at the WSOP
Despite being in Vegas and mixing at the GG party with Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand Grospelier, and many others who are playing, he says, “I’ve never been a tournament guy, always cash game.”
He added that he didn’t even particularly enjoy his deep-ish run at the Main Event in 2009. It is his only recorded tournament cash to date.
That saw him take 180th place and just over $36k, Dan stating: “I remember being on day 6 or 7 and just being ready to get the fuck out of there!”
Whether the $100million head-up match will take place or not seems to be open to question, but we’ll keep you updated as and when we hear anything.
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