You don’t need luck to win millions in the game, you need the greed of your fellow players. Molly Bloom gambles with the big boys. At least until spoilsport Justice intervenes. What a pity!
After school, Molly Bloom can no longer stand living in Loveland, a small town somewhere in Colorado. She goes to LA. With drug offenses, disturbances of the peace, minor assaults and traffic violations on her record, she now wants to study law in the City of Angels. A laudable intention. But things turn out as they must: Molly’s inner demons and fate have other ideas for her. The pretty student works as a waitress in a casino and is promptly promoted to VIP hostess. Your job: serve and keep quiet. It’s better that none of the backroom poker rounds see the light of day, but all the more unseen money ends up in the pockets of all those involved. Even the brunette waitress. A tip of 3,000 dollars a night doesn’t just finance the first designer rag. Bloom has tasted blood. A detour to university? Put aside before the end of the first semester. Molly once again plays the trump card that she knows best: the legal gray area with its charming, sexy smartness that millionaire men love to fall for. And so they willingly follow the pretty brunette into the suites of renowned luxury hotels. “They were literally begging for an invitation,” says Molly. Anyone thinking of smut now has only themselves to blame. The only places that are dirty in a physical sense are the adjoining rooms. What happens here is more nerve-wracking than a hooker act. This is about honor. And sometimes for 50 million dollars.
The “Princess of Poker”, as Molly is now known in the scene, has managed to lure the gambling crème de la crème of the moneyed aristocracy from her ex-boss’s back room to her own green felt table. Top-secret, illegal poker meetings worth millions have become a lucrative business model for the then 28-year-old. Her clients: Top 100 candidates on the Forbes rich list, poker pros and professional playboys like Dan Bilzerian, top athletes and, of course, Hollywood! Ben Affleck is a regular. Matt Damon too. And Leo DiCaprio only plays with giant headphones (for the sake of concentration!) and a starting stake of 50,000 dollars. “But money is the least of the issues. The men are gambling for power and adrenaline,” says the hostess. She knows her boys. “When greed, stress and macho behavior collide, it becomes unrestrained.” Soon the ice in LA becomes too thin. And the acting clientele too exhausting. Molly moves her business to New York. The new target group is even better off and less diva-like. It’s a shame that in 2013, around 20 FBI agents knock on her door, confiscate millions in black money and drag Molly to court. The poker princess gets off fairly lightly with a suspended sentence and a fine as well as 200 hours of community service, but her illegal gambling is still over. Molly recalls her old resolutions, wants to become decent and write an autobiography. The book actually becomes a bestseller. And Hollywood is said to be interested in her again. This time for a movie adaptation of the book. But is the game really over?
