Millionaire playboy named 'Most Interesting' for his lavish lifestyle

Millionaire playboy named 'Most Interesting' for his lavish lifestyle

Multimillionaire high-stakes poker player Dan Bilzerian has been named the "Most Interesting Person" on photo-sharing platform, Instagram, by entertainment news site Buzzfeed last week, with photos featuring his lavish playboy lifestyle and expensive gun collection.

With over 480,000 followers, the 33-year-old has been gaining popularity over the years as more netizens get exposed to his extravagant Internet persona. In his photos, he shows his fans and followers a lifestyle that many can only dream about.

Other than moonlighting as an occasional actor and tweeting about winning US$10.8 million (S$13.8 million) at a poker game, Bilzerian's photos reveal that his days are mostly filled with frolicking with beautiful and scantily-clad women and lounging around on luxurious yachts.

He also rings up frequent flyer miles in his private jets when he visits his many homes located from California to Montana.

It is evident that Bilzerian has a passion for extreme sports with his many photos showing him heading up to the desert for a game of aggressive paintball or getting cuts on his face after a snowboarding trip with his buddies.

However, his risky lifestyle was apparently too much for his health, reported Daily Dot in Dec 2013. When he was 25 years old, Bilzerian suffered a double heart-attack during a snowboarding trip and in 2011, he had a pulmonary embolism during a three-day non-stop poker game where he flew back and forth from Maui to Las Vegas.

According to Daily Dot, Bilzerian made his fortune as a high-stakes gambler after picking up poker from the brother while he was a student at the University of South Florida. 

[[nid:95809]]

When the Los Angeles-based player first started the game, he lost all his money and had to sell some weapons from his existing gun collection to recuperate his losses, he told Daily Dot.

He started to train and read up on poker resources such as Doyle Brunson's Super System, Bilzerian said to Cardplayer.com, to build up his game. The 33-year-old is reportedly worth around US$100 million, said Daily Mail in Dec 2013.

Despite his "bad boy" image, Bilzerian said he is trying to rebrand himself as a "gentleman of poker". According to Daily Mail, Bilzerian gave away US$100,000 of the money he won to the "Robin Hood Project", and also donated to the Typhoon Haiyan victims and underprivileged and disabled people.

However, some of his fans and followers seem unconvinced by his charitable change of heart as his photo feed on Instagram are still populated by his lavish playboy lifestyle.

Daily Dot reported that his father, Paul Bilzerian, served four years in jail and was fined US$1.5 million in 1989. The former corporate takeover banker subsequently filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

Bilzerian does not divulge much information on his parents but when asked of his childhood, he told Daily Dot that he didn't get to enjoy much of it.

wjeanne@sph.com.sg

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.