The Rise of Dan Bilzerian: The Dark Truth Behind How He Made MILLIONS

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so how did you make your money then playing poker you made it all play in poker yeah dan bilzerian has a lifestyle as controversial as it is enticing a lifestyle that has gained him 32 million followers on instagram alone you've probably heard of him before in case you haven't these are just a few highlights of what dan bilzerian gets up to you're probably asking yourself how does he afford to do it well the short answer is it's [Music] complicated part one many have estimated dan bilzerian's net worth to be around a hundred million dollars bilzerian claims to have made most of his fortune from poker games but not everyone believes this story given it's rare that the public is able to watch him play according to upswing poker bilzerian has only won one live recorded poker event in 2009 he participated in the wsop main event and finished in 180th place winning only 36 thousand dollars that doesn't exactly speak well for his poker skills now bilzerian claims to only play private cash games with non-professionals unfortunately that setup doesn't allow anyone to track his winnings or his income so we're pretty much going by his word as to his poker skills bilzerian alleged on twitter that in november 2013 he won 10.8 million dollars in a single night of poker and of 150 million dollars throughout 2014 however bilzerian also claims that he no longer plays against professionals again all of these claims are uncontested but not corroborated so draw your own conclusions a youtube video made by former professional poker player doug polk tackled the subject of bilzerian's income in the video polk analyzed bilzerian's poker skills and determined that he doesn't behave like a player capable of winning on a regular basis bill's area never claimed to be the best poker player instead he claims that he has access to and is good at picking the most lucrative private cash games i never wanted to be the guy on tv showing everybody how good i was he said i wanted to be the guy that people thought sucked that i could play with the rich guys it was the one thing in my life that wasn't about ego it was about bank account bilzerian said he even went out of his way to avoid associating closely with poker players just to ensure that the celebrities and business people in the underground games he's requested wouldn't think he was a strong player considering the evidence most people believe that while bilzerian may have made some money from poker the majority of his income likely came from a different source part two the details of dan bilzerian's early life read more like a marvel comic's origin story than the biography of a real human being dan grew up in tampa florida in an 11 bedroom mansion that was half the size of buckingham palace with its own indoor basketball court lakefront views and swimming pool his dad descended from survivors of the armenian diaspora owned a robotics company among other investments a high school dropout paul bilzerian served in vietnam and then graduated from stamford university and harvard business school he joined the corporate takeover scene in the 1980s with hostile bids for certain companies these bets often paid off for him and investment partners when friendlier suitors came in with higher offers in the case of singako a connecticut manufacturer mr bilzerian took over the company in 1988 and became its chairman by then the sec had subpoenaed his records in a broad investigation of takeovers and wall street trading in 1988 he faced federal criminal charges of concealing his investments by parking stock in someone else's name not making timely disclosures of his stakes and misstating sources of his funds prosecutors said his actions victimized other investors who left in the dark sold shares of target companies too cheaply mr bilzerian was convicted in 1989 of fraud conspiracy and making false statements to the sec he paid a 1.5 million dollar fine and drew a prison sentence initially set at four years ultimately serving 13 months he has long maintained the conviction was wrong in part because nobody really was injured by his actions he appealed legal setbacks tied up regulators with dozens of lawsuits and motions often acting as his own lawyer and used offshore and domestic trusts partnerships and charities to protect assets for his family that included acid set aside for dan a wall street journal investigation revealed that paul bilzerian now resides on saint kitts in the west indies as a convicted fraudster who has paid only 3.7 million dollars of a two decade old 62 million dollar judgment against him naturally questions have been raised over just how much of dan's money comes with his father part three after supposedly winning big in poker dan began to turn his attention to the world of social media given his extravagant lifestyle of hanging out with models driving fast cars and shooting guns he quickly made a name for himself on instagram today dan has a following of over 32 million followers on instagram you could say he's living the dream for most guys but his lifestyle certainly gets him lots of hate too especially the way he flaunts money in an interview dan claims that in a single week his instagram reaches almost half a billion people and with all that cloud dan has tried to find a way to monetize it in 2015 dan decided to launch ignite a brand which sells a wide variety of weed and cbd products along with a premium apparel line on their website it says ignite is unapologetic in our attitude and in our promise to provide the ultimate experience to our customers the company is notorious for having large launch parties at damn's mansion and they pretty much go exactly how you would imagine so how exactly is the company doing to date with all the clout dan brings they must be doing pretty good right well things have actually been pretty controversial within the company as the ceo of ignite dan is being sued by curtis heffernan who claims he was fired from his job at ignite after noticing some company funds were being spent on things that seemed personal and then blowing the whistle according to the lawsuit obtained by curtis who was ignite's executive vp curtis flagged tons of purchases to the company board such as lavish spending on a seventy five thousand dollar paintball field forty thousand dollars on a rock climbing wall sixty thousand dollars on a star wars gun set thirty one thousand dollars on pool renovations fifty thousand dollars on a bed frame fifteen thousand dollars on a ping pong table and eighty eight thousand dollars on a vault in the documents curtis claims dan's company was also burning tons of money on luxury yacht rentals transportation for hot models and he says he found other quote-on-quote business expenses that turned out to be charges for groceries and various household items and things are looking even worse from there a few months ago ignite filed its financial report with the canadian stock exchange and things aren't looking good for it in 2019 alone it suffered a net loss of 67 million canadian dollars which equates to roughly 50 million us dollars more specifically the company spent 22 million us dollars on its marketing budget alone which was already more than double of its sales revenue the staggering costs can be associated to various branded parties and events with tons of free drinks and supermodel guests in total ignite lost 43 million us dollars on operating costs funding its marketing and promotions while paying for office leases as well as compensation for staff members and executives with their finances deeply in the red the future of ignite is now being called into question the company's board of directors wrote although the company has been successful in the past in obtaining financing there is no assurance that it will be able to obtain adequate financing in the future or that such financing will be on terms that are acceptable to the company the board continued the uncertainty of the company's ability to achieve profitable operations and its success in raising additional capital funding may cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern [Music] ignite began trading publicly in canada in january 2019 and trades under the bill zf ticker has seen its stock value plummet more than 70 in the ensuing year and a half to 70 cents will dan be held accountable for his lavish spending or will ignite shareholders continue to bear the majority of the company's losses only time will tell what happens next the end of the day money's really freedom because when you've got a lot of money you can do whatever you want nobody can tell you what to do and there you have it the story of dan bilzerian of course i missed out a lot of the intricacies in this video on dan's life a full biography would be too vast for me to cover in a single video but if you do want to learn more about dan's story and hear his side of things he is releasing an autobiography later this year so be on the lookout for that even if some of his stories aren't verifiable nobody can deny that bilzerian has lived an interesting life bilzerian has made a habit of generating headlines a pattern that's unlikely to change anytime soon my goal with this channel is to create entertaining videos related to the world of business and money if that sounds like something you'd be interested in and you'd want to tune in for more hit the subscribe button and notification bell to make sure all your notifications are turned on thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video then be sure to hit the like button and comment down below your thoughts and with all of that being said i hope you have a great rest of your day

Channel: Strive

Views: 1,410,630

Rating: 4.8403106 out of 5

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Id: eLftQTIbGE4

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020