In poker, it’s tough; it’s tough to manage your money. Because you don’t know. You can go out and play great and still lose. You can get your money in with the best hand and still get unlucky.
— Dan Bilzerian
With 33-million+ followers, Dan Bilzerian is the official “King of Instagram.” Take a look through Dan’s account, and you’ll see photos of scantily-clad, gorgeous women, stacks of cash, and party videos that would make the late Hugh Hefner blush.
Estimates put Dan’s net worth anywhere between $150-million to $200-million, but no-one really knows the true extent of his wealth. One thing is for sure, Dan knows how to live life, and he’s the envy of any red-blooded male on the planet.
Dan Bilzerian: The Facts
Net Worth: | $150-$200 Million |
---|---|
📆 DOB: | December 7, 1980 |
🌎 Country of Origin: | United States of America |
💲 Source of Wealth: | Actor, Poker Player, Business Man |
✅Updated: | 2023 |
In an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Dan admits to some crazy life stories. He claims that he once got a girl to sleep with him, without uttering a single word to her. He also claims that he suffered a heart attack after consuming a combination of cocaine and Viagra in a multi-day bender.
Dan’s a polarizing figure, and you either love him or hate him. However, one thing that you can’t deny the man is that he’s balling through life as the world’s ultimate playboy.
Dan Bilzerian – The Early Years
Dan Bilzerian was born on December 7, 1980, in Tampa Bay, Florida. He is the son of Paul Bilzerian, a private equity capitalist, and Terri Steffen, a prominent Miami socialite in her day. Dan also has a brother, Adam, but we don’t hear much about his sibling in the media.
After leaving high school, Dan decided to join the Navy in 1999. Fascinated by the rugged hard men he saw in movies, Dan decided that joining the military would be the best way to develop a rugged and rough physique while enhancing his mental fortitude.
In 2000, Dan decided to kick things up a gear with his military service, and enlisted to join SEAL training. He went on to complete the devastating “Hell weeks,” consisting of 14-days on intensive training designed to make candidates quit from physical and mental exhaustion.
Dan managed to make it through the basic training and hell weeks. Still, he got booted from the training program 2-weeks before his graduation, citing a disagreement with his administrators as his reason for leaving the armed forces. According to an interview, Dan’s superiors had a problem with his safety conduct on the gun range.
Dan claims he has always had an issue with authority, and today, he prefers to live life on his terms, rather than bowing to others ideals. To quote, “If I feel like going to Vegas in the middle of the night, I’m going to go.”
After leaving the Navy, Dan enrolled at the University of Florida, where he majored in business and criminology. After earning his degree, Dan floated aimlessly through his early twenties. He picked up playing poker online while in school and claims that he sometimes spent 8 to 10-hours playing thousands of hands of poker.
It was his talent at the poker table that led to him starting a career as a professional poker player at the age of 29 years-old. In 2009, Dan finished in 180th place at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, from a field of thousands of competitors to earn his spot in the competition’s main event.
His success at the poker tournament would net earnings of $36,000.
Dan Bilzerian – High Stakes Poker Genius
While $36,000 is a lot of money, Dan claims that the bulk of his fortune came from playing private poker tournaments. In his interview with Joe Rogan, Dan says that in one private card game, he netted $12.8-million in winnings. Some of his other biggest wins include a $10.8-million payout from playing a single hand of Texas Hold-em, featuring stakes of between $5,000-$10,000.
After winning the pot, Dan says that he took his best friends and a bunch of girls on a private plane to party in Mexico. It was at this stage that Dan realized his future was on the cards, and he went on to earn more than $50-million playing private poker events in 2014.
While Dan likes to account for his biggest wins at the table, he also says that he experienced some huge losses that almost made him quit the game altogether. Some of his most extensive losses include going more than $3-million down on at least three different games during that year.
Bluff Magazine awarded Dan with the title of “Funniest Poker Player on Twitter,” and Dan is also the co-founder of the Victory Poker, an elite club of poker players, including the likes of Sara Underwood, Paul Wasicka, Antonio Esfandiari, and Andrew Robl. However, the company folded after 18-months, and it never managed to find its way into an online poker club.
Dan also dreams of being a media mogul, and it was this vision that led him to invest $1-million into the film, “Lone Survivor,” in exchange for 8-minutes of time on screen, and 80-words of dialogue. However, he claims the management team didn’t live up to his agreement, so he sued the company.
Dan also appeared in the films, “Olympus Has Fallen,” “Equalizer,” and “The Other Woman.”
Dan Bilzerian – The “King” of Instagram
Most people know Dan Bilzerian through his antics on Instagram. His account on “the gram” has close to 30-million followers, and 1,344-posts as of writing this article, and we’re sure that both of those numbers will continue to climb. Dan is the original Instagram “influencer,” and his feed looks like something out of a James Bond movie, crossed with a porn stars’ lifestyle.
Pick any post, and you’re likely to see a common theme, pretty girls, stacks of cash, exclusive parties, and exotic travel. Dan knows how to create quality content, and everything from images to videos looks like they have the touch of a masterful filmmaker.
Dan pushes partying to the limit, and he claims to have suffered three heart attacks before he reached the age of 32-years old. However, he admits that most of these attacks occurred because of his irresponsibility with drugs and alcohol, combined with a relentless party lifestyle.
Dan also has a physique that most men would die for. However, he freely admits that his ripped and muscular body is a result of plenty of time in the gym – along with several cycles of anabolic steroids. Dan believes in the benefits of drugs, and his open and honest lifestyle is a big part of what shot him to fame on the platform.
The Luxury Lifestyle of Dan Bilzerian
Dan’s life of excess is second to none. His dad, Paul Bilzerian, gave him some critical advice when he was young – never own a woman, a plane, or a boat. Dan claims that it was this advice and his hatred of his father that led him to acquire all three.
Dan used to pay $39,000 in a monthly rental for his home in the Hollywood Hills. However, he recently moved into another rental in the prestigious suburb of Bel-Air, costing him $50,000 a month in rent.
Dan has a primary residence in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it’s his second property in the state. He acquired a 5-bed home in Summerlin South for a price of $4.1-million in 2014 and reportedly sold it in 2017 for $5.1-million. Dan took the profits and invested in another home in Summerlin, with a purchase price of $10-million.
Dan likes taking his friends, and plenty of girls, on exotic vacations. Look through his Instagram feed, and you’ll find plenty of images and videos of him vacationing in locations all around the world, from India to Thailand, to the Caribbean.
Dan lives the party lifestyle, and he claims that he doesn’t intend to stop until he gets another heart attack that ends his life. Dan truly is the embodiment of the phrase “party till you die.”
Dan Bilzerian – The Down-to-Earth Millionaire
Watch an interview with Dan, or tune into his podcast with Joe Rogan, on the “Joe Rogan Experience #857,” and you’ll learn a lot about his ascent to fame and fortune. However, one thing that’s noticeable about Dan during the podcast is that he seems like a down-to-earth, open, and honest guy, with a penchant for partying and enjoying the finer things in life.
It doesn’t look like he has an over-inflated ego, as what you would expect from an Instagram influencer that spends his days surrounded by beautiful girls and “yes-men.” Dan says that he enjoys spending money on his friends, buying them extravagant gifts, and taking them on vacations around the world.
Dan believes that he’s on earth to party and enjoy himself, and he doesn’t care about what other people think of him. With an estimated net worth of up to $200-million, and growing, Dan is a successful businessman in his own right.
Dan Bilzerian and Cannabis
While talking to Joe Rogan, Dan talks about his passion for cannabis, and his love of the herb led him to found a cannabis company, “Ignite.” He claims that his vision for the company is to revolutionize the cannabis industry, offering top-quality THC and CBD products.
Dan also has his fingers in multiple other cannabis ventures, with some of them preparing for a public offering and listing on stock exchanges. Dan’s vocal about his passion for cannabis, believing it to be a healing form of medicine that every human being should consume.
Paul Bilzerian – The Man Dan Hates Most
The story of Dan Bilzerian and his rise to fame and fortune might sound like a story of the underdog – but that’s not the case. Dan is not a kid that grew up middle-class or poor. He comes from a family of wealth, with his father, Paul Bilzerian, being a private equity banker.
Dan and his brother lived a lavish lifestyle as children with everything they could need. However, it turns out that his father was no clean-cut banker. Paul escaped conviction in the U.S on fraud and tax-evasion charges after fleeing to the Caribbean in 2016, away from U.S extradition.
Paul allegedly ripped his clients off for millions of dollars, and Dan was only eight years old at the time. The courts ordered Paul Bilzerian to pay $60-million in fines, which Paul claimed he could not repay. Paul Bilzerian filed for bankruptcy in 2001, claiming only $15,000 in assets and debts of more than $140-million.
Dan claims that he never forgave his father for what he did to his family, stating that he has no plans ever to contact Paul again.
Dan Bilzerian – The Conspiracy
This stage is where things turn a little shady. According to poker analyst, Doug Polk, Dan is nothing more than an average to a good poker player, and nowhere near elite status. In an interview, Doug states that he doesn’t believe Dan’s claims of making millions in poker unless he was playing against patsies.
While it’s clear that Dan made a significant amount of money playing poker and working as a stuntman, something doesn’t add up. Doug claims that Dan’s official winnings are an accurate reflection of his poker talents and that he skeptical of Dan’s claims about winning large sums in private games.
Before his indictment, there’s speculation that Paul Bilzerian set up trust funds for both of his sons, Dan and Adam. Some conspiracy theorists suggest that Paul used the trust funds to launder the ill-gotten gains he made while working in the private equity industry.
While Dan claims that he never touched his trust fund, it would go a long way to explaining how he amassed his vast $200-million fortune. Dan claims that he already earned $40-million himself, without any help from his father, by the time he was 36-years old.
However, according to Vice, if we apply Occam’s razor to the scenario and look for the simplest solution to a complex question, then it makes sense that Dan could be a trust fund baby, living his life on his dad’s stolen money – but no-one knows this for sure. There’s no concrete evidence to validate any of those claims.
Dan Bilzerian Quotes
Everyone has a right to their own opinion about me, and that’s fine. I’m just going to keep being myself and living my life. That’s all I can do.
Basically I didn’t get a ton of attention as a kid. I guess that’s why I’m such a flashy lunatic.
I went broke after sophomore year, gambled away all my money, sold some guns, turned $750 into $10,000, flew to Vegas, turned ten thou into $187,000.
Guys are attracted based on looks 95% of the time. Girls are almost the opposite. Looks are a smaller factor. They’re more attracted to a confident guy, or a successful guy, or someone who makes them laugh, or makes them feel comfortable.
Life is all in the setup. A lot of people think I got the world handed to me, and I let them think exactly that whilst they handed me the world.
My relationship with my dad was a little rocky, sure. The time that I spent with him was basically two hours of Little League practice, six or seven days a week, from the age of five until whenever. If we lost, there was no talking the whole way home. But that seemed normal to me.
All the kids in school taunted me, ‘Your dad’s going to jail,’ and I believed my parents when they said no it wouldn’t happen. Then one day I was driving into school with him, which was weird because my mom always took us. And he was like, ‘yeah, I’m going to jail.’
It’s not smart to get caught without a gun.
Climbing the mountain is always more fun than sitting at the top. It’s just you have to find different mountains to climb.
Sometimes I feel like a 16-year-old who’s got a blank check.