ShareMolly Bloom, of Molly’s Game fame, has revealed in an interview that she was visited by a mobster who threatened her after she refused to pay a slice of the profits from the infamous poker games.
The 45-year-old was a guest on the YouTube channel Diary of a CEO and gave some revealing insights into what went on during the high stakes games that had A-List celebs such as Ben Affleck and Tobey Maguire attending.
With names like that it’s easy to understand why Bloom had to conduct due diligence like never before—this was a cash cow that would pay big money for many years.
Unfortunately, some unsavoury characters did manage to get into the games, in particular some with ties to the Russian mob, including a few that were involved in running their own illegal gambling ring and the largest insurance fraud scheme in New York history.
Eventually, the Italian mafia in New York heard about Bloom’s games and demanded tribute for operating on their patch.
A menacing phone call set Bloom straight about where she stood but, incredibly, she refused to agree to hand over any of the profits, clearly not sensing the danger she was putting herself in. Then things took a turn for the worse.
“They sent this terrifying guy to my apartment that put a gun in my mouth, something that you just never forget, and he beat the hell outta me and took everything in my safe, including photographs, a couple things that I had from my grandmother."
Fortunately, the group of monsters were arrested not long after targeting Bloom and they were never heard from again.
Molly Bloom Narrowly Avoids 10 Years in Prison
Once Molly Bloom built up momentum with her growing clientele, there was no turning back—the amount of money flowing into the organiser’s pockets was simply too much.Profits that were often more than $20,000 in a night accumulated into a minimum of $4million in a year. But eventually the law caught on to the operation and Bloom was soon facing a 10-year stretch in a federal prison.
Fortunately, she found herself in front of a sympathetic judge who felt that while she had knowingly broken the law, it wasn’t a crime deserving of prison, preferring to sentence her to probation.
Bloomed said: "I get a judge that's very disappointed with me, but ultimately a pretty reasonable guy who said, 'listen, you were running poker games and it seems you've done a lot to change your life. I'm not going to sentence you to prison. It's hard to adequately express to you how big that moment is."
