Forbes magazine has recently released to the public their newest rankings of the 400 wealthiest people in America, and two of them on the list are well-known in the world of poker.
Sheldon Adelson and Andrew Beal have made it on the 2017 Forbes List of The World's Billionaires.
Sheldon Adelson is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., and his company owns the Venetian in Las Vegas and many other casinos in Asia. He is worth an estimated $30.4 billion. This year's ranking shows it was an improvement over the past year, where he placed 22nd with a net worth of $27 billion. Therefore, his fortune grew by more than 31%.
He may not be a poker player, but Adelson owns the Venetian in Las Vegas which is home to one of the most popular poker rooms across the globe. However, it is good to note that there are a lot of poker players who do not wish to play there because of his anti-online poker stance.
The casino magnate and GOP megadonor has, for a long time, been on a quest to have Internet-based poker banned in America. Even if he failed to pass his Restoration of America's Wire Act (RAWA), his firm interest in the issue has kept many recipients of his political donations from considering other bills that support online gambling and online poker.
On the other hand, Andrew Beal is a poker player and owner of Beal Bank. He deems himself a number theorist who utilized his math skills to invest wisely, and if the stakes are high enough, he can use these skills to help him win at poker.
Of course, Beal absolutely did not become rich through poker. From the duration of 2001-2004, in 2006, 2011 and 2015, he lost more money playing poker than most people will ever get their hands on in an entire lifetime.
It all began in 2001 when Beal would play at the Bellagio in Las Vegas against some of the best high-stakes poker pros in the world such as the likes of Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, Jen Harman, Barry Greenstein, and Phil Ivey. He battled against a group of players called "The Corporation" in heads-up games at the highest stakes one can imagine. In a 2016 podcast interview with Daniel Negreanu, Harman said that the blinds in those limit hold'em games would go up as high as $100,000 / $200,000!
In 2006, in a course of three days, Beal lost $16.6 million to Ivey.
Five years later, in 2011, it was reported that he lost around $50 million in three poker games against amateur poker players, including Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire. A representative of Beal said that was not the correct amount. However, he only said, "The amounts stated in your e-mail to us concerning Mr. Beal are inaccurate. Beyond that, Mr. Beal has no further comment."
In 2015, during one session, Beal lost $5 million to Todd Brunson in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Beal loses every time he plays at a poker table. He in fact has taken home some multi-million-dollar pots, like the $11.7 million pot at the Bellagio in 2004.
Source:
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static_country:United%20States
