Bradley Ruderman Turned Tables On A-List Poker Sharks
August 14, 2012 12:46 pmBack in 2009, multi-millionaire hedge fund manager Bradley Ruderman was criminally charged with operating a $44 million Ponzi scheme and is currently serving 10 years behind bars in a Texas prison.
At the time, much of the embezzled money was spent on his extravagant lifestyle, including losing a purported $25 million playing poker with an A-list celebrity cast at luxury hotels in Beverly Hills. A few years on and Ruderman has finally revealed intricate details related to the high-stakes illegal poker game which took place, in a deposition recorded at his prison in Kern County, California.
Highlighted in his deposition is the importance Toby Maguire played in securing Ruderman’s attendance at the twice-weekly poker games, which included such noted alumni as Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. Nevertheless, it was Molly Bloom, the sister of professional football player Jeremy Bloom, who initially extended the invitation to Ruderman while at a party, and as he explains:
“She just told me it was a traditional Texas Hold’em game..that if I enjoyed gambling and enjoyed ‘action’ that it would be worth my while to come.”
Despite his enthusiasm for the game, Ruderman proved to be a poor player and whereas Toby Maguire is rumoured to have won a possible $40 million over three years, Ruderman’s loses soon mounted with the biggest single pot he confesses to having witnessed being worth $950,000.
In his deposition, Ruderman said he soon found himself dipping into his client’s money to pay off his gambling debts, whilst manipulating data to misrepresent his fund’s performance. Talking about the situation, Ruderman elaborated:
“I was a loser. I’m thinking like any gambler is thinking or any pathological gambler is thinking. You’re not keeping track of the actual numbers. You’re thinking, I’m that much closer to going on the big run. That’s the juice.”
However, having a big fish like Bradley Ruderman in their poker game eventually backfired as his investors then sought to claw back their missing funds through civil suits. This all brought a lot of heat on the celebrity players, who were compelled to settle out of court to avoid further embarrassment or indignity. As one of the players commented:
“The irony of it all is that the game finally found the biggest fish ever, Ruderman, and we did our best to bury him every week and win his millions. Now those who fleeced him of millions are embroiled in this lawsuit. It’s like he turned the tables on us with no skill, just sheer stupidity.”