Molly Bloom, known as the underground poker princess ran an illegal poker ring for a number of years that was frequently visited by celebrity poker players and professionals from Wall Street. Molly was arrested and charged with running an illegal gambling racket and prosecuted. She pleaded guilty and apologized for her behavior and the bad decisions that she had made along the way that resulted in her becoming a criminal.
However, Molly is determined to make the most out of her troubled past. While she earned a lot of money running her illegal poker operations, most of that money has evaporated due to her lavish lifestyle and legal fees. Molly decided to tell-it-all in a book entitled “Molly’s Game” which will be published this week.
Molly ran a high end underground poker operation that attracted celebrity poker players like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, A- Rod and the CEO of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté. These illegal poker games ran for a number of years and one of the biggest games was held in 2008, when Molly would use the Four Seasons to rent out a 4,300 square foot suite that gave its celebrity poker players a 360’ view of Manhattan. The buy-in for this particular game was as much as $250,000 and had celebrities and a number of wall street individuals and hedge fund managers lining up to be a part of this game.
Molly provided an excellent atmosphere for her high end clientele by customizing music that catered to a gambling mindset, filling the room with champagne and caviar and enlisting a number of playboy playmates who would entertain her male clientele. Molly walked away with $50,000 for being the hostess for this party, not counting tips that her clientele offered.
In her book, Molly confirms that her celebrity poker players often lost and then won 6 figures on a frequent basis. Her popularity and her income grew considerably and Molly states that in one particular year she earned as much as a million dollars.
Bloom also writes about the dangerous and hardships she faced in running such a high profile illegal gambling racket. Bloom does not seem very repentant for what she has done as she states in her book
If I had to do it all over, would I choose the same path? My answer is yes, a thousand times yes. I had a grand adventure.
