"He Put A Gun In My Mouth, Then Beat Me Up!" - Molly Bloom (Molly's Game)

He put a gun in my mouth, beat the hell out of me, and he- he said, "If you tell anyone about this, I know where your family lives." For the first time in my life, I knew finally it was game over. I'm Molly Bloom.

Dubbed The Poker Princess.

The former waitress who-

Took a small poker game run out of a dingy nightclub-

To the biggest underground poker game-

In the world. From Hollywood celebrities to millionaires.

They literally made a Hollywood movie about it.

The game turned from legal to illegal.

I had become the biggest game runner in New York City. Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Tobey Maguire, politicians. I was making $4 to $6 million a year. It was unbelievable. $250,000 buy-in.

So I couldn't sit down unless I brought $250,000 to lose?

That's right.

And you saw someone lose $100 million in a night?

Yes. This is where the science of how you make people feel became a really big tool, and I would memorize people's lives, the names of their kids, what they cared about, favorite food order, drink order. These things can absolutely be used for good, but I just became obsessed. What had been about trying to be an entrepreneur and be gutsy started to be exclusively about the money and the power, but I paid a huge price for it. I started to partner with people that were not the right people to partner with. In the middle of the night, I get arrested by 17 FBI agents, machine guns. They put me in handcuffs and they put this piece of paper in front of me that says, "The United States of America versus Molly Bloom."

The FBI gives you an ultimatum. They were gonna give you millions if you snitched on the players in the game.

I had 48 hours.

What happens then? Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (instrumental music plays) Molly, what do I need to understand about your earliest context to understand you?

Going right in. (laughs) Um, I think it almost always starts with the family, uh, and childhood, and I am from, uh, a family of, you know, my two little brothers are incredible humans, but like, the craziest overachievers you could ever imagine. And then I have these two incredible parents who were very powerful influences in our lives. My dad stood on this platform of you cultivate discipline, and if you have a fear, you walk through it, and you learn how to suffer constructively for your dreams, for your goals. And then my mom, uh, you know, she was this... She insisted on kindness and integrity. So there was this whole ecosystem of extraordinary, and I didn't know how I fit into that at all, and I desperately wanted a seat at that table. And probably during the times that w- we were raised, there were these ideas of what success looked like and how you get there, and it was genius and talent and specific skillset, you know? But I knew that I had to be successful or... And this is not hyperbolic. I literally did not wanna live. I mean, I remember when I was applying to law school, I said to my dad, "If I don't get into an Ivy League law school, I don't know, like, ho... I don't wanna live." You know? And-