Dan Bilzerian is a venture capitalist and professional poker player and has a net worth of $100 million. The majority of Bilzerian’s money has been won by playing poker. Bilzerian is known for his party-loving personality and for the fact that, he, in his own words, spends his money like “a 16-year-old who’s got a blank check.” Here are five things you (probably) didn’t know about Dan Bilzerian
He was almost a Navy SEAL.
Dan Bilzerian is a four year military veteran who enlisted in the Navy back in 1999. According to Bilzerian, he was supposedly kicked out of Navy SEAL training two days before graduation after he called an officer quite the undesirable name. When he finished his time in the military, Bilzerian attended the University of Florida, where he studied Business and Criminology. More importantly, however, he learned how to play cards while he was at the University of South Florida. “I went broke after sophomore year,” Bilzerian said about how he learned how to play the game well enough to become a millionaire, “gambled away all my money, sold some guns, turned $750 into $10,000, flew to Vegas, turned 10 thou into $187,000, went back to school, played better.”
He’s had some major heart issues.
Unfortunately, although Bilzerian is only 33 years old, he has already dealt with three major heart traumas, and all three of these incidents occurred before Bilzerian was 30. One of these incidents was a double heart attack when Bilzerian was just 25. It occurred after an intense four day snowboarding vacation with minimum sleep. Bilzerian then suffered a pulmonary embolism in August 2011, when he flew between Maui and Las Vegas twice in less than three days to play around-the-clock poker and didn’t take the time to sleep. However, Bilzerian now reportedly insists that he is in perfect health.
He’s an Instagram celebrity.
Dan Bilzerian has gotten quite the reputation as a partying playboy and a lot of that is due to the photos that he posts to Instagram, which mainly feature him with barely clothed women, big guns, and expensive cars. Bilzerian’s Instagram account has nearly 3.5 million followers. When asked in interviews about the types of pictures that he posts, the professional poker player seems to relish in the idea that he is this male fantasy, someone who has the type of life that any average guy out there across the United States would want to have.
He’s all about the movies.
Dan Bilzerian is not simply an internet celebrity but a Hollywood celebrity as well. Well, sort of. Bilzerian first appeared as a stunt man in the 2013 film Olympus Has Fallen, which starred Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman. Then, after investing a reported one million dollars into the production of Lone Survivor, Bilzerian also had a small role in that film as well. He also appeared in the 2014 film The Other Woman, which Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, and Kate Upton all starred in. Furthermore, Bilzerian can be seen, along with the likes of Denzel Washington, Chloe Grace Moretz, Melissa Leo, and Bill Pullman, in the Antoine Fuqua-directed crime thriller The Equalizer when it hits theaters in about two months on September 26.
He’s a gun and watch collector.
Bilzerian is an avid gun and watch collector, although he has stated that he definitely owns more guns than watches. Reportedly, Bilzerian possesses over one hundred guns, some functional and some just for decoration, while his watches differ greatly in price, the cheapest being $40,000 and the most expensive one a reported $800,000.
Photo via YouTube
