Poker doesn’t get much more high stakes than the rumoured $100 million heads-up battle between Instagram playboy Dan Bilzerian and billionaire businessman Alec Gores, but news of an NFL buyout could scupper the proposed poker battle…
As we reported late last year, Dan Bilzerian was pushing hard for the biggest poker showdown of all time, claiming he wanted to “Pay-Per-View the mother****r.”
The $100million pricetag – $50million apiece – was apparently the Israeli-born, poker-loving private equity billionaire’s line in the sand after Bilzerian claimed he’d won most of his $millions in private highstakes poker games with Gores.
Bilzerian made his claims in his autobiography, The Setup, and then repeated them on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, apparently angering Gores.
Alec Gores angry at Bilzerian’s Claims
“… Alec … saw my podcast and texted me. I said I beat him for like $40-$50 million, and he’s like, ‘Oh, the number wasn’t that high,’” claimed Bilzerian.
Bilzerian, never far from controversy or self-promotion, added: “He’s like, ‘I wanna play you heads-up, let’s see who has the bigger balls for $25 million apiece.”
Those massive stakes were quickly bumped up even higher, Gores responding to Bilzerian’s offer to wire $25million to the Aria with, ‘I don’t wanna play you unless it’s for at least $50 million.’
Bilzerian claimed he told Gores, ‘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.”
That was last year, with Bilzerian claiming Gores is stalling on the match, but the billionaire may well have a good reason for putting such a high-profile poker showdown on hold.
Denver Broncos 4 million bucks pricetag
When NFL team, Denver Broncos, were put up for sale last week, the pricetag of $3.8 billion, much like the proposed poker match, soon escalated, with $4billion and figures upwards being mooted.
The Beverly Hills-based Gores Group, which poker-mad Alec runs, is interested – a three-pronged investment with other partners looking into what would be the most expensive US sports team buyout in history.
The LA Times listed the New York Mets’ $2.4billion 2020 sale in top spot, with the Carolina Panthers going for $2.3billion in 2018. If Gores and his investment buddies pay $4billion for the Broncos, those other sales will pale into relative insignificance.
Why would this be of any consequence to Bilzerian’s attempts to felt Gores for $50million? Well, one obvious answer is that gores has much bigger fish to try at the moment.
It has also been pointed out that any authorities interested in such a massive sale as the Broncos might not be too enamoured with a very public poker battle involving one of the new owners. You can bet your bottom dollar that Bilzerian won’t be keeping quiet about it.
Alec Gores and Molly’s Game
We all know about Bilzerian’s incredible poker claims (if you don’t, start here with a $10million cash game) but what about Alec Gores? A private man in most respects, he is known to have been one of the big figures in the real-life “Molly’s Game.”
The highstakes private poker games run by Molly Bloom involved famous stars such as Tobey Maguire (pictured below with Gores), Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, and was immortalised in the Hollywood blockbuster “Molly’s Game”. The movie starred Jessica Chastain in the lead role and Michael Cera as Player X, an amalgam of the Hollywood stars named above.
If you recall the movie or the real life story, you’ll remember that one player, Brad Ruderman, lost $5million of Ponzi scheme money, and when the FBI got involved the whole house came tumbling down – Alec Gores included.
Gores had allegedly won $445,000 of Ruderman’s dodgy money and is reported to have paid back about half of that – pocket change for the billionaire – rather than contest the claim in court.
Meanwhile, back at the relatively modest level of millionaires rather than billionaires, the new series of High Stakes Poker is all set to air.
Real High Stakes Poker
It maybe be “only” $500-$1000 stakes, but Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Doyle Brunson taking on the likes of 2021 WSOP Main Event champion Koray Aldemir, and fan favourite Garrett Adelstein, is probably a safer bet.
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