Dan Bilzerian, who is no longer a GGPoker ambassador (more on this in a bit), doesn't think too highly of poker players, which he made clear on the popular No Jumper Podcast.
The social media playboy has been an avid poker player for many years and has competed in some of the highest stakes cash games in the world, though he doesn't face top competition. Instead, by his own admission, he seeks out billionaire fish that he can crush and has no interest in chasing World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets or squaring off against legendary heads-up giants such as Doug Polk. He's in it for the money, not the glory.
"My goal with poker was always to play with people that were playing for fun," Bilzerian said. "I wanted to play with the rich guy that was playing for fun, not the guy that was trying to be a f*****g killer. I wanted to play against these rich guys that were going there to f*****g, like, blow off some steam, f**k with their friends, show a big bluff, f**k some massage girls, whatever, get out of the house from the wife."
That said, he claims to have accumulated his wealth from poker and not from an inheritance from his wealthy father like many suggest. He even says that he made upwards of $40 million against just one player, billionaire Alec Gores, whom he also challenged to a $100 million heads-up match, a contest that doesn't appear will ever take place.
You can watch the entire two-hour No Jumper Podcast with Bilzerian below, or keep reading for a transcription of some of the 'highlights'.
Bilzerian Trashes Poker Community
Bilzerian, a gun-toting Instagram influencer, sat down for an interview with Adam22 of the No Jumper Podcast, which has over 4.2 million YouTube subscribers. In the two-hour conversation, they discussed everything from money and poker to the former GGPoker ambassador's book, "The Setup."
At around the 1:10:00 mark, Mr. Cool made it be known that he's a superior human compared to the rest of the poker community.
"I don't really hangout with that many of them, I don't really want to associate with them. I shut most of them out of my f*****g games. I never really let pros in."
"Most poker players are f*****g nerds," Bilzerian told Adam22, who is also a poker enthusiast. "I don't really hangout with that many of them, I don't really want to associate with them. I shut most of them out of my f*****g games. I never really let pros in."
The list of "f*****g nerds" doesn't include players such as Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Andrew Robl, and Dan "Jungleman" Cates, apparently. He considers those pros "friends." But the rest of the poker community, we're sorry to say, you're not worthy of Dan Bilzerian's friendship.
What Happened with the GGPoker Partnership?
When GGPoker hired "Blitz" as an ambassador in 2020, some members of the poker community were critical of the move due to, as they claim, Bilzerian's alleged sexist behavior. Vanessa Kade was perhaps the most vocal critic, which sparked a memorable vile Twitter response from Bilzerian.
Two years later and Bilzerian's no longer with the global poker giant. He explained on the No Jumper Podcast why he's out at GGPoker and rarely promoted the poker site as an ambassador.
"I get offered so much money to do f*****g promos," Bilzerian said. "I just don't have the heart to do it."
He then went on to say that he's turned down numerous seven-figure offers to promote NFT's and other products such as poker sites, but, in the end, "I just won't sellout."
"I get offered so much money to do f*****g promos. I just don't have the heart to do it."
The social media star said that GGPoker didn't hold up their end of the contract. He used an example of a freeroll tournament he went to Turks and Caicos to promote but the poker site didn't listen to his requests on how to promote the event, he claims.
"Initially, I tried to do it, you know what I mean, I did some posts and drove them a f******d of traffic," Bilzerian claims. "But then they were supposed to give me a percentage of the people that I recruited, and you know, we had like 100,000 that we downloaded, there's like a lot of people. So, the numbers they were saying they were going to pay me was millions a month."
Bilzerian then claimed that GGPoker wasn't paying him the affiliate revenue he expected.
"So, we just agreed to kind of like end it, you know," Bilzerian said of the GGPoker relationship.
Bilzerian Trashes Hellmuth, Polk
Bilzerian's wealth accumulation has long been a topic of discussion. Part of why so many people are concerned with how much he made is due to Doug Polk fueling the debate, or so he claims. Polk had Bilzerian on his podcast earlier this year, and the conversation was quite contentious.
"He's the stereotypical clickbait guy," Bilzerian told Adam22 of Polk's attacks on him over the years. "He doesn't care about reporting the news, was willing to convolute the truth to fit his narrative to get him the story that he wanted. And then he'd basically hide under the guise of 'oh, I'm just a journalist.' But it's like, no if you're a journalist taking that approach, you've got some ethical issues there."
Bilzerian claims Polk, and his so-called "bulls**t editor" (Thomas Keeling), chopped up videos of him to make him "answer a question in the way that I didn't answer a question."
"Guys like Phil Hellmuth are probably the worst f*****g thing to ever happen to poker"
Polk, however, didn't receive as much criticism on the No Jumper Podcast as Phil Hellmuth did. Bilzerian ripped on the 16-time WSOP bracelet winner even more harshly.
"Guys like Phil Hellmuth are probably the worst f*****g thing to ever happen to poker," Bilzerian claims. "You got a guy berating players for playing bad. In my games, we encourage people to play bad."
Bilzerian bashed Hellmuth for his bratty behavior in the juicy Hustler Casino Live stream that featured YouTube and Twitch celebs such as MrBeast and Ninja.
"We wanted people to make bad calls and stupid bluffs," Bilzerian said of his home games. "And this f*****g idiot (Hellmuth) is encouraging them to play better, to play tighter, and it's like, why?"
