If you have spent any significant amount of time on Instagram, chances are that you would have heard of or seen Dan Bilzerian. This is even more likely if you are a young male, as that is the target audience for the 40-year-old as he promotes his high-flying lifestyle. Bilzerian has made a name as an Instagram influencer, frequently posting images and videos in luxurious locations, with expensive clothes, cars and accessories, as well as many beautiful women surrounding him, while he is also an amateur poker player who has entered quite a few tournaments, and also runs his own promotions and tournaments around poker. However, it has now been determined that he is largely a fraud, having been the recipient of a trust fund from his father, which is the source of the majority of his wealth, rather than having been accumulated from winning poker tournaments, neither in person nor on websites such as YourPokerDream.com.
Bilzerian is the son of Paul Bilzerian, who is a corporate takeover specialist, and provided both Dan Bilzerian and his brother Adam Bilzerian with trust funds. His father has also been convicted of failing to make timely and complete disclosures with regard to unsuccessful takeover attempts of Cluett, Peabody and Company, and Hammermill Paper Company under Schedule 13(d), and has served a 13-month prison sentence, as well as having had to declare bankruptcy after being ordered to give up his profits from these activities.
Dan Bilzerian has also claimed that the majority of his wealth has come from winning poker matches – he stated in November 2013 that he had won $10.8 million from a single night of poker games, while he claimed to have won a total of $50 million from poker in 2014, also stating that the most he has lost in a single session is $3.6 million. However, his only recorded win from poker came at the 2009 World Series of Poker main event, where he finished 180th and won $36,626. His poker skills were broken down in a video by professional poker player Doug Polk, which has garnered millions of views. In the video, Polk states that Bilzerian plays extremely aggressively which carries over into poor gameplay, and makes Bilzerian a ‘fish in the water’ for more composed and better players to target in poker games. He also pointed out that the 40-year-old often makes basic mistakes, and all of this means that his claims of earning millions through poker is completely untrue, as he does not have the skill, fundamentals or discipline to play high-stakes poker at a good level.
Bilzerian runs a company, Ignite International Brands Ltd, that sells electronic cigarettes, CBD oils, vodka, water bottles and other products. This company reportedly made a loss of over $50 million in 2019, mostly on marketing and rental expenses, and this offers another clue as to the truth behind Bilzerian’s lifestyle and fortune. According to Forbes, almost everything that Bilzerian claims to own, including his cars and the lavish $65 million mansion in Los Angeles, is in fact rented, with the expenses being billed to Ignite, which is one of the main reasons why the company lost so much money in 2019. The house alone costs more than $2.4 million in rent annually, and this is the biggest explanation behind Ignite’s finances, as well as his firing of Curtis Heffman, the former president of the company.
The 40-year-old has certainly built a reputation as a playboy living his best life, with lavish parties, holidays in exotic destinations, and one of the most expensive houses in the USA. However, as we have shown, this is all a facade, and Bilzerian is not the person he claims to be.