Instagram star, millionaire poker player and – according to one writer on this website – "trashiest trash man," Dan Bilzerian is legendary for at least appearing to live a lifestyle of manly-man beards, boobs and money.
Whether you're a Bilzerian hater or lover, if you've looked at his feed, you've at least briefly imagined living like this:
And you probably said "I'm going to start playing poker" when you found out Bilzerian made all the money to live that lifestyle by turning $750 into $10,000 into $187,000 in one trip to Vegas, before ascending to the point of making $50 million a year as a poker player.
The problem with that legend of turning $750 into a fortune that lets you surround your cat in stacks of cash is that it's probably just that, a legend. A new investigation by Vice aims to show that Bilzerian was actually rich long before his poker career by way of his white-collar ex-convict dad's "dirty money."
By digging up documents regarding the various companies, business dealings and criminal history of Paul Bilzerian, Dan's dad, Vice's story is this in a nutshell:
Paul Bilzerian did prison time for fraud in the late '80s and later declared bankruptcy while owing the government millions of dollars, but through a series of business moves detailed in the report (that will make your head hurt with their complexity) he allegedly moved a fortune around in such a way that it went to his wife and kids where the feds couldn't touch it.
Nobody knows how much Dan Bilzerian got, but it seems like a whole lot, and definitely quite a bit more than $750.
Does this destroy the legend of Dan Bilzerian? Some will say yeah. Others will say that exploiting marginally legal financial loopholes in order to keep your ill-gotten millions away from government seizure so the fam can thrive is the American way.
We'll see if Dan loses any of those 12 million Instagram followers. (Hint: he won't).
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