Dan Bilzerian, Suitcase Guy

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article with the title "Dan Bilzerian's Life of Partying and Poker". The article discusses his lifetsyle, his Instagram celebrity status, and his alleged poker winnings of $50 million, as well as his "origin story".

Details about the life of Instagram celebrity/actor/poker player pop up every once in a while, in the past we got to know that he attended Navy SEAL training, but didn't finish, he suffered a heart attack after a five day bender filled with gambling, various drugs and sex, but nobody quite knew when and where he burst onto the scene. Thanks to Todd Witteles, a poker writer, we got to know his "origin story", which Bilzerian actually confirmed (well, he said "sounds about right", but you take what you can).

Bilzerian allegedly showed up at a Lake Tahoe casino in January 2007, with a suitcase of money. Players talked about his wild playing style and about the $100,000 he had in his suitcase. Witteles approached him in hope of playing some heads-up $100/$200 limit holdem, to which Bilzerian replied: "Maybe if it was no-limit." Witteles declined the offer since he was not a heads-up no-limit player and didn't have the bankroll to battle Bilzerian. Instead, they played in a $5/$10 no-limit game, but Bilzerian's "wildness" was not to be witnessed. According to Witteles, it was a really nitty game, but Bilzerian didn't change pace, he kept folding and complaining about people not playing any pots. Witteles believes that Bilzerian was just mad that people saw him as a rich fish, and left soon after. 

Bilzerian recently posted a picture of his current suitcase

After this, Bilzerian started to become more and more known in the poker world, but his claims of winning $50 million is likely a stretch. Bob Bright, a businessman who has been playing with Bilzerian for years, said he has never heard about this sum before.

Bilzerian doesn't claim to be a very good poker player though, once in college he even had to sell three of his guns after busting his roll in a poker game. He dislikes playing with professionals, however, it is rumored that his playboy lifestyle and Instagram fame earned him invitations to super-high stakes cash games where the competition is mostly billionaire businessmen and A-list celebrities who don't care about losing a couple million here and there, as long as they can brag about playing with a player who is currently considered as one of the biggest celebrities of poker.