Gambling Career

As a professional poker player Bilzerian's most notable cash was in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, for which he appeared on six episodes of the show's television broadcast. He finished in 180th place and won $36,626. He is also a co-founder of Victory Poker, an online poker room. In 2010 he was voted one of the funniest poker players on Twitter by Bluff Magazine. On March 9, 2011 Bilzerian raced fellow race car enthusiast and Supreme Court Litigator Tom Goldstein for a wager of $385,000 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with Bilzerian racing a 1965 AC Cobra and Goldstein behind the wheel of a Ferrari 458 Italia. Bilzerian won the race.

In November 2011 Bilzerian, along with ten others including actors Tobey Maguire, Nick Cassavetes and Gabe Kaplan, were asked to pay back winnings that they had won in poker games against ponzi-scheme operator Bradley Ruderman after Ruderman was sentenced to prison, to help pay back some of the victims Ruderman had stolen from over his criminal career. That same year Bilzerian defended Alex Rodriguez publicly against accusations that he had gambled illegally, claiming that he was present when the alleged gambling event had taken place and Rodriguez was not present.