If you come from an athletic background, people likely don't expect you to someday rub elbows with Hollywood royalty. Molly Bloom made this interesting transition, winning a place on the U.S. ski team while in college and seeing her brother compete in the Olympics twice, but she quit the sport after injuring herself. Bloom then ran underground poker games for celebrities, a dangerous position that inspired the recent film Molly's Game, starring Jessica Chastain. Her past of working with such famous figures has us wondering: what is Molly Bloom's net worth?
The 39-year-old definitely has raked up a significant income in the past few months between her life story appearing onscreen and the film's source being her memoir Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World. While we can never be sure of the amount of money she earns, here is as best of a guess we have.
Speaking to Fortune, Bloom revealed that, at the peak of her poker games, her 2009 tax returns resulted in over $4 million thanks to the tips gained through extending credit to participants. "Sometimes those tips were really big," she said. "One night, I saw someone lose $100 million."
Bloom was essentially the "bank" for her games, learning to view herself as a powerful source in the eyes of the men playing. "I was no longer this object of desire," she said. "I was someone who let them have their money to play the game — or didn't."
Bloom claims that prosecutors promised to restore her accounts if she revealed the names of celebrity players to the FBI. To this day, Bloom has only discussed the famous people who played at her poker games if they were already revealed to the public before her book was published. Participants included Ben Affleck, Tobey Maguire, and Leonardo DiCaprio. In response to law enforcement's proposed deal, she said, "I made these choices...to turn around when I was in trouble and take people down with me felt wrong...stepping on other people and the sort of collateral damage to their families and everything — that felt like a life sentence."
The Daily Mail reports that her organizer gig allowed for her to earn as much as $4 million a year. The lofty pay led to lavish lifestyle changes for Bloom, who seemed to take the saying "treat yo' self" to heart. "It was shallow, but it was fun," Bloom said of her purchases. "A lot of my friends were bought these things by their boyfriends, but I loved that I did it all by myself."
While contributing to the promotion of the film Molly's Game, Bloom spoke about the "cinematic wish fulfillment" of having such easy access to luxurious treats, but that part of her experience wasn't even what felt most important to her.
"The biggest moments for me were when you take this calculated risk in which the odds are so stacked against you," she said. "You're going up against the billionaire boys' club or trying to find your way into something you have no basis for, and it's bigger than anything you ever imagined — and then actually having that work. Having that risk pan out. It taught me to be very fearless — maybe too fearless in the end."
Bloom's involvement in the poker games did lead to legal trouble. In 2014, she was sentenced to a year of probation, paying a $1000 fine, and completing 200 hours of community service for her role in a particular game with links to Russian-American crime.
While we can assume that Bloom's income will rise notably as a result of her publicized story, it wouldn't exactly be a classy move to share how much was earned. However, as seen with Hollywood women vocalizing concerns about wage gaps, it's definitely inspirational to see a woman who once handled matters of money so fiercely.
Molly's Game is in theaters now.
