A
multimillionaire poker star has been dubbed Instagram's playboy king
after chronicling his extravagant life full of near-naked women,
sportscars and guns.
Los Angeles-based Dan Bilzerian,
32, describes himself as an "actor/astronaut/a**hole" to his more than
100,000 Instagram followers.
Bilzerian is reportedly worth $100
million, making the bulk of his cash as a high-stakes gambler having
developed his skills as a student at the University of South Florida.
However, his risky lifestyle has resulted in some serious repercussions,
including a double heart attack and a pulmonary embolism.
The
32-year-old multimillionaire poker star said in the caption to this
picture: "When I was a kid I never wanted to be classy, I just wanted to
be rich"
Bilzerian's
Instagram feed includes a recent picture of a seal and a topless blonde
woman in a swimming pool, with the caption: "My buddy actually had a
seal brought to the house and put in the pool haha."
The playboy regularly posts pictures, like this, of piles of money
Another
photo shows two luxury cars in the garage of his LA mansion with the
comment: "While I'm more of a t*t guy, I do appreciate a nice a**..."
The vehicles are adorned with personalized plates that read 'SUCK IT'
and 'MR GOAT' - his other favored moniker.
Another
picture of more than a dozen semi-automatic weapons on a table has the
caption: "My greatest fear is that someone will break in & I won't
be able to decide what #gun to shoot them with."
Life has always
been high-risk to Bilzerian. His father, Paul Bilzerian, a former
corporate takeover artist, was sentenced to four years in jail and given
a $1.5 million fine in 1989.
Bilzerian, right, was training to be a Navy SEAL before he was kicked out for swearing at an officer
"I
didn't get to enjoy much of it," Bilzerian said of his childhood. He
said he wasn't "super-cool" in high school and went to both a military
boarding school and to Utah to live with Mormons for a year. In senior
year, he ended up in jail for having a machine gun in the trunk of his
car. But he managed to get his GED.
The gun-rights advocate then
joined the military and made it 99 per cent through Navy SEAL training,
he said. But two days before graduation he was thrown out for insulting
an officer.
Bilzerian said he loved his time at the University of
South Florida, which is where he started playing poker. "I went broke
after sophomore year, 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 explained.
He said the turning point was losing everything: "I respected the money. You have to go broke to respect the money."
He has since won multiple tournaments and co-founded online poker room.
Bilzerian
described betting on everything in life as his essential condition but
he hasn't always won. His health, in particular has suffered as a result
of his high-flying lifestyle.
When he was 25, Bilzerian went on a
"four-day, very active snowboarding trip - traveling, not sleeping,
hanging with friends," doing all kinds stuff. It ended in a double heart
attack.
In August 2011, Bilzerian flew between Maui and Las Vegas
twice in a three-day period to play around-the-clock poker and his
heart gave out again. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism not a
heart attack, however.
He wrote: "Bought these sexy twins for the duck hunt in December #onesnotenough"
Now,
Bilzerian is in perfect health while seemingly continuing to make money
and enjoy spending them. However, Bilzerian said he wants to tidy up
his badboy image, and is attempting to rebrand himself as "the gentleman
of poker."
His efforts have involved giving away $100,000 of the
money he's won in what he's calling the Robin Hood Project. So far he's
helped Typhoon Haiyan victims, a couple who adopted four sick,
underprivileged kids, and a third woman who lost all her limbs.
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