How Molly Bloom Ran Multimillion Dollar Underground Poker Games

So I moved to Los Angeles. My parents were not on board with that and so I had to get a lot of different jobs. One of them was working for a man in Hollywood who had a weekly poker game. And he said that he was going to — it was going to be part of my responsibilities to help him out at the game. And the first night I was there I recognized a really interesting opportunity to build a network and access to incredible information because this game was populated by some of the world's most famous, wealthiest, and most powerful men.

I think what set this game apart was, I wasn't a gambler and I wasn't running a game because I wanted to play in it. I looked at it as a business. I looked at it as a startup and I wanted to be able to expand my business and so I started seeking out players. I started kind of looking in different corners of the country, of the world, and finding these whales, finding these big gamblers, that would contribute to this very compelling, larger-than-life environment.

You know, I recognize that these men had massive privilege. They weren't interested in acquiring things. They wanted experiences and I think I was able to create an experience that was very exciting, there was an adrenaline component to it, there was a bloodsport component to it. Ultimately, I recognize that there was certainly an addiction component to it.

I saw someone lose $100 million in one night. When you watch that, as an owner-operator of a game, you realize that these numbers are incredibly unsustainable, incredibly unhealthy. So, I was not happy about this loss. It brought me no joy or adrenaline. I recognized it as really unhealthy and unsustainable.