Jordan Belfort Shares Wild $45Million Poker Stories

09:18
02 Jan

In a recent Full Send Podcast with Kyle Forgeard and Bob Menery, Jordan Belfort opened up and told some crazy gambling stories from his past.

Belfort admitted that he loves to gamble, but he used to take it too far.

“I always used to gamble,” Belfort said when asked whether he was a gambler, “but the thing is, I used to gamble like a fuckin’ madman. A couple of my friends just got destroyed gambling. I had one friend that lost like $45 million dollars gambling."

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The Wolf of Wall Street said that, due to the amount of money he was making at one point, sometimes the money he won didn’t seem like enough.

“I got to the point gambling where I was making so much money that I couldn’t win enough to move my needle, and when I lost half a million dollars I was pissed,” Belfort said. “So what’s the point in gambling when there’s no upside.”

When asked if he had any gambling stories, Belfort told Menery he has “a lot of savage gambling stories.” Among those stories, he shared his biggest gambling loss.

“The biggest loss I took was $1.2 million,” Belfort said.

He told the Full Send cast about a time when a stranger won $12,000 with Belfort’s last $40 while gambling in Puerto Rico.

“I was in Puerto Rico at the El San Juan Hotel in 1986, right before I started Straton,” Belfort said. “I had a little money from being a stock-broker. I was playing craps and I thought I knew what I was doing. There was this guy in the casino, he was like a real sharp-lookin guy, and his name was Joey,” Belfort added. “We started talking, and he was like, ‘Let me show you how to play craps, I’m an expert at craps.’”

He then details how Joey lost $450 of his money showing him how to play craps. With only $40 left, the pair went to a casino across the street.

“I think it was the Sands,” Belfort said. “(Joey) asked me how much money I had left. I said, ‘I got like forty bucks.’ I watched this guy, in 30 minutes, turn forty bucks into $12,000.”

Belfort told Forgeard and Menery that after he witnessed Joey works his magic he became a craps player.

“I was just starting Straton,” Belfort said. “I started playing more and getting bigger and bigger, and I went on this two year winning streak where I won every single time I played. I had some really big wins.”

Belfort was in St. Martin on vacation and played some low-limit craps at a small casino and ended up losing $100. The small loss broke his winning streak and he never won after that.

“I kept losing and losing for like years after,” Belfort said. “I just couldn’t get it together again. I finally got so frustrated I said screw it, I’m done.”

The full podcast episode can be found below. Belfort talks crypto, his career and more.