Instagram Star Dan Bilzerian Probably Didn't Make His Millions From Just Poker, Says Report

Instagram star and millionaire Dan Bilzerian probably didn't start from scratch and make a fortune at the poker table, according to a Vice report.

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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: 

Public records reveal that Dan Bilzerian has been a party to a byzantine network of corporations, companies, and other business formulations designed to protect the assets of his white-collar criminal father Paul Bilzerian from the government, and that the 34-year-old Instagram star has been a beneficiary of trusts established by his old man in the 90s—at a time when dad owed tens of millions of dollars to the feds.

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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