The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Pro Gambler Exposes World Of High-Stakes Betting, Laundering Drug Money, Working As FBI Informant

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

What does it really look like to live as a professional high-stakes gambler at the very top of the casino food chain? In this episode, Johnny sits down with RJ “Chip” Ryan — a legendary blackjack whale who spent decades betting millions per hand in casinos from Atlantic City to Las Vegas to Macau. RJ tells the raw, unfiltered story of how he went from a broke gambler driving to Atlantic City with his last $5,000, to carrying $10 million in checks, flying private jets, rubbing shoulders with billionaires and celebrities, and taking casinos for millions of dollars at a time. RJ is also known to many as “Robin Hood of Las Vegas” from the Cocaine Cowboys universe — the man who helped launder cartel money through casinos, later cooperating with the feds and offering a very different version of events than what’s been told on screen. This episode dives deep into: -The real math and psychology behind winning at high-stakes blackjack -How casinos court, reward, and ultimately try to break whales -Blowing millions in a single night — and coming back the next day to win it all back -Private jets, penthouse suites, celebrity parties, and casino politics The emotional toll of gambling, addiction, loyalty, karma, and survival -RJ’s personal reckoning after caring for his mother, losing everything, and betting his life on one final run This is not a glamorized gambling story — it’s a brutally honest look at the highs, lows, wins, losses, and moral gray zones of a life lived on the edge. Stick around until the end and decide for yourself: Was RJ a genius, a degenerate, a hustler — or all three? This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: Ridge! Take advantage of Ridge’s Biggest Sale of the Year and GET UP TO 47% Off by going to https://www.Ridge.com/CONNECT #Ridgepod CashApp! Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/1ekoiacn #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. Betterhelp! This December, start a new tradition, by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/connect Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Intro: High Stakes Gambling Stories 01:19 Growing Up in Philly & The Family Hustle 04:44 Early Gambling Influences & Lessons 08:09 Professional Gambling: Setting Goals 13:19 The Turning Point: Mother’s Illness and Debt 16:35 This Episode Is Sponsored By RIDGE 18:25 Building a High Roller Reputation 29:01 Life as a Whale: Jets, Parties & Big Wins 36:46 Vegas High Roller Lifestyle & Big Losses 43:34 A Word From Today's Sponsors 46:15 International Gambling & Casino Barred Stories 01:00:53 Advanced Blackjack Strategy & Discipline 01:12:12 Vigilante Gambler: Involvement With Law Enforcement 01:28:01 The Robin Hood 702 Charity Era 01:37:08 Australia, Owen Hanson & The Money Laundering Allegation 01:58:46 Confrontations, Lawsuits & Truth vs. Documentary 02:12:08 Working with the Feds: Taking Down Criminals 02:31:02 Cartel Connections & Final Reflections 02:38:44 Outro: The High Roller’s Ongoing Journey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes

and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion.

You survived the Miami weekend, nailed the speech, and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Deepop. Just snap a few photos, and we'll take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity, money back. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop. where taste recognizes taste. I used to carry $10 million in checks on me.

I started with $3 million, and then the $3 million went to $4, to $5,000, $7,000, I left it up to the gambling dots. If I was supposed to win, I was going to win. If I wasn't, I didn't. He said, I'll give you a million and a half, try to win somebody. I'm thinking, something's up here, man.

So I took that $2.5 million and blew through it all. R.J. Chippriani is a professional gambler, who's made his living for 40 years betting in high-stakes blackjack games around the world from Atlantic Cs. to Vegas to Macau. He takes us inside the life of a high roller, flying private jets, schmoozing with celebrities, and losing and winning millions of dollars per hand. You might also recognize him as Robin Hood Las Vegas from the Cocaine Quarterback documentary about Owen Hansen. He's the one

who laundered millions of Owen's drug money by blowing it all at a casino in Sydney, Australia. That's him, that's RJ. He ended up cooperating with the feds and helped to put Owen and his crew behind bars. But he tells a very different story than the one Owen portrays in the documentary. So stick around until the end and you can decide for yourself who's telling the truth. This is a wild one, folks, and RJ does not hold back. Get ready for some drama. RJ Chipriani, the Robin Hood of Las Vegas, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. You're from Philly? From Philly.

Let's start where I came up. You have gambling in your blood. Yeah. Your father. No, no, no. My father wasn't a gambler. My father was a hustler. He had five kids, and he was a barber at night.

He worked in a factory, Unaroyle, as a shipping, head of shipping. So Unilroyal was making belts and sneaks, pro-Keds. I don't know if you remember pro-Keds. So that wasn't enough to take care of five kids. We lived on top of a barbershop. In Philly. In Philly. And my father was probably the most beloved man.

that I ever met because if you wanted something, you went to my father. If you wanted cigarettes, he got untaxed cigarettes, and he would bring you cartons of it. If you wanted wine, he had untaxed wine that he would sell you. If you wanted to buy a refrigerator, you'd buy it and he would, you know, get paid on time.

I mean, he was like the first rent-a-center. He was the first check casher. Like he had five, six hundred people working in his factory. He would get their checks and go to the bank, cash him and get like to the change every check had like you know $140 and $85. He would take the $0.85 to cash the check. So he did this every week.

He did everything possible. And the most illegal thing, I guess, was untaxed cigarettes and untaxed wine. But at the end of the day, they were going to buy it. He just went across the state line and bought him and brought him back to Philly. So, um, but Philly, Philly loves gambling. Philly and New York, like the East Coast. It's not like it is out here. Like you guys, you just, you are gambling, bookmaking, running numbers at a young age.

Yeah, well, I didn't do none of that. I was a gambler, but my friends were always older. So I had these old Italian friends, some from Argentina, some from Chile, and they were degenerate gamblers. So I learned how to play blackjack from these guys that were like 20 years older to me. So I would go on to casinos at 16. And I'm playing with these guys, and I'm watching these guys that were in business who had a pizzeria, who had a concrete place. And they would just blow all their week's money at the casino or at the racetrack or at private like poker games where they'd be yelling and screaming at each other. And then after the game was over, they all loved each other.

It was just, it was. So I grew up, I guess, knowing the wrong people that lured me. into the easy life of being a gambler. But I didn't realize until much later that there's a system that you got to adhere to. You've got to have a big bank role if you're going to be successful. But the most important thing is what people forget, you have to have a goal. You can't just go into a casino and say, okay, I'm going to take $200 and win $20,000. No, you've got to think, okay, if you want to win $200, you need to.

a thousand right you need to think you could win 20% of whatever your bank is so people don't realize that and when you hit it you leave because if not the the wheels of of you know gambling and luck go up and down so you want to get out of there so that's the three things a bankroll um you got to know a goal got to set a goal before you walk in the door if you hit it like if i hit a goal in the first play like the first day of playing i'm done i go home Have you done that? All the time. What do you set as a goal?

It's always different. It's always different. Like I'll just, for instance, like, okay, what are my bills this month? I need this much money. Okay. Let me get two bills, two months, three months worth of bills. Whatever it is, I'm going to buy something. Let me get that.

But you have to set that goal, but it's always different. You know, when I'm really going after, my goal's higher because I'm bringing a lot more money. But you always have to have the bankroll. and you have to know when to stop. And you can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't hang with your girlfriend, you can't hang with friends to sit at the table. I sit alone at a private table.

That's the other thing that's very important. You have to play at a private table. If not, you got no shot. Why? Because other people are hitting cards or not hitting cards in your base in your play on these idiots that sometimes will hit a 16 against the dealers three.

And they just screwed up the whole shoot. How do you get a private table? You put up enough money. you can get a anybody. You can get a private game. Right. That's what it's about. So it kind of sounds like drug dealing in the way that like you get out while you're ahead.

Yeah. It's kind of the only way to win. Yeah. But when you're gambling for this long, look, high rollers, they may last a month. They may last two months. They may last a year. There's not too many high rollers that have been gamma for 48 years. I've been gamma for 48 years.

I haven't been a high roller for 48 years. I remember when I first played it. Resorts Casino in Atlantic City, and I won $124. And I came home and told my friends, I just won $124. I killed them. I destroyed him, and I got a free lunch. Well, in the scheme of things, it was nothing. But then when I was 16, it was something, right?

Now I've bet three hands at $50,000. Some hands I've had $4,000, $600,000 on a hand. You know, if you're playing several spots, it's considered a hand on a hand of cards, four, five, six hundred thousand. It's absurd. I mean, it's like putting a house on a table. So, you know, you got to be grounded when you're done playing. You can't go party and do coke and get old. I've never tried drugs ever, including pot. And believe me, I've had a lot of hot women that said, oh, just try this. Just try this. And we can party. I just won't do it. I don't believe in tattoos because my mom raised me and said, Robert, don't mark up your body. I took care of you.

Don't mark up your body. Don't do drugs. Don't smoke. So I don't do any of that. And people don't believe it. But it's what I do. How many people, it sounds like there's a difference between the high rollers. There's high rollers that have tons of money from outside businesses.

And then there's high rollers whose tons of money comes from gambling. 100%. How many are, how many guys do you know like you? Not many. Not many. Most of the guys are already rich. And they say, let me gamble. Right.

They're the ones that get destroyed. all the time. And then there's guys that were given money with their family and they don't care. Money means nothing to them. So if they blow a million or two, it means nothing. And then there's guys that just gambled and yeah,

I got assets from gambling. I mean, everything that I've got and I've done is because of gamble. Yeah. What do you think you've made lifetime? Yeah, I don't like to put a number on that, but you know, I'll put it this way. Monty M's? No, yeah. I'll

put it this way. When I started my big role, it was 25 years ago. My mom had Alzheimer's. I was taking care of her. Her name was Regina. And I was taking care of her for close to seven years, washing her, changing her diapers. I moved her from my father's barbershop to my house. I had a five-bedroom house, beautiful neighborhood. And I made it for her so she could live there without going up and down steps and all that. I had two women taking care of her. And I blew everything that I had taken care of her. Everything I did, every move I made was wrong. So I would gamble, get my ass kicked. I go to a loan shark. I'm borrowing money. And then all of a sudden I'm down 300,000 with loan sharks. and my mom's living and I'm trying to keep her alive

because it's, you know, she's the love of my life and she's the reason why I'm here. I got to be there for. So I take 5,000. Oh, let's rewind. I owe these loan sharks 300 grand and nothing's going right. But I'm not betting big. I'm still betting like 100, 200, 300 a hand, two spots.

So. What's the vague on a $300,000 loan? shark you know i i i was going to talk my way out of the vig because i was i just wouldn't call them and they were just calling me all the time for the money and i was just ignoring their calls and i kept thinking i'm going to be able to pay them back so i literally i wasn't even making payments i just owed this money that they were accruing list interest but it wasn't like a mob guy it was a guy it was a friend of a friend so he was going to charge me interest and i said listen I'm having trouble.

He came to my house. He saw me taking care of my mom. So he had kind of a soft heart for it. He knew I wasn't, you know, a jerk. So you didn't take, like, mafia loans? I knew those guys, but no. I took it from, it was actually a Jewish guy that was friends with one of my, like, childhood friends.

So he said, look, he'll take care of us. So anyway, I wasn't making payments. I was just, like, rolling, hoping that, you know, that I was going to be able to pay this money back. So my mom wound up dying and it was very, very bad time. I was suicidal. I had no reason to live. And I took my last five grand, and I was driving down Atlantic City. And at the time, you two, which is one of my favorite groups, they had a song that came out called Beautiful Day.

So I'm driving And I would go to Atlantic City all the time I mean I went every day Because Philly's like If you drive fast you're there in 55 minutes So I'm driving with my last five grand My mom's gone I had to sell my beautiful five bedroom house

And as I'm driving I hear the song And the song plays and it says But what you don't have You don't need it now What you don't know You can feel somehow What you don't have

You don't need it now, don't need it now. It's a beautiful day. And I'm hearing that. And as I'm approaching the, I don't know if you ever been on the Atlantic City Expressway, but I'm approaching. Unfortunately. I'm approaching the Pleasantville toll. And I see in the distance, Atlantic City. And I'm like, where am I going to go?

And it had just finished raining as I'm driving. And in the distance, there's a rain. and I look and the rainbows ending at Caesars, Atlantic City. So I said, I'm going Atlantic City, Caesars. So that's what I did. And I'm a guy that follow signs. I follow numbers. I believe in luck.

And I believe luck comes to you if you're a good person, if you do good things. So I try to do good things. So I went to Seizers with five grand. and I took that five grand and met some amazing people like Roger King. You probably don't know who he is. Roger King was a huge gambler.

He started King World. He started the Mary Talomore Show. He produced it. He gave Oprah Winfrey, her first shot. I met that guy. And he was a degenerate gambler who blew $10 million a year just at seizures. And sold him

we had some interactions. Make a long story short, I took 5,000 and 1,000, almost 7.50. I went to an event. How long does that take you? How long did that take you? It took me a month because I don't forget, I have nowhere to live.

So I'm living at Cesar Atlantic City. Wow. So I'm there for about a month and I'm up about 250. And then. How many hours a day? Like what, and what's your game? Blackjack. Blackjack.

Okay. Just Blackjack. Yeah. So I'm playing every day. I'm winning 2,000, 3,000 stopping, 2,000, 3,000 stopping. 2,000, stopping. By the end of a month, I'm up 250. Never in my life was up 250, right?

250,000. So I'm like, okay, I got enough to pay these guys. I'm still short, but then I'm broke again. So I got to keep going, right? So I keep playing. and I find out that Roger King is having an event at his at seizures and it's for the Miami Project. The Miami Project is a foundation that helps people with spinal cord injuries. It was started by Nick Bonacani, who was a big football player for the Dolphins.

His son in a, I think a high school football accident was paralyzed for life and was in a wheelchair for life. So he started this foundation called the Miami Project, which helped people kind of try to heal from spinal cord injuries. So I met those people that were running it, and Roger King had an affinity for it. So I got a ticket to get in. At the time, I would always wear wife-beater t-shirts, and I would walk around like these celebrities

that were dressed in t-tos. And I'm in this party with a Yankees hat and a white wife-beater t-shirt. And I paid 10 grand to get into the party. So there was a guy earlier that day that said, RJ, you're the Joe DiMaj of Atlantic City. I said, why do you say that? He says, well, you're beating us every day for a month.

No one's ever done that. I go, well, why Joe DiMaggio? He goes, well, remember Joe DiMaggio? Had that 58 or 57 hits and got a hit every game for 57 games? I'm like, wow, I'm the Joe DiMaggio of Atlantic City. Now, when you're beating them that bad, are you getting people from the casino coming down, like trying to, trying to, I don't know, fuck your flow up, trying to get you to quit.

No, no, because I was going there for years, right? I was going there for years, and the most I would win is four, five thousand. So the people at the game, because I was always nice to people, you know, the dealers, the floormen, they love me. You're tipping everybody. Yeah, I would tip them, but I would do things that nobody's ever done. Like, I would buy everybody like lunch. I would go to the White House sub place and buy subs and give them to the whole casino.

So nobody did that kind of stuff. So when they saw me winning big, they kind of like would cheer me on. You know what I mean? So it was kind of cool. So Roger King taught me about asking for promo chips, asking for discounts. I didn't know nothing about that. Promot chips are free chips they give you to induce you to come and play. Discounts are you blow a lot of money.

I don't like to say the LOS E word. When you blow a lot of money, they give you a percentage back. So say you blow a million, they give you $200,000 back. Really? Yeah. And is that pretty common? In the casino business? Only high rollers.

Like most people will never know that. You guys, when I discovered Ridge wallet a few years ago, it was like when I discovered Bitcoin. Fiat currency then became like a thing of the past. Well, that's kind of what happened when I found Ridge. I no longer carry that big clunky leather wallet anymore. I have, boom, the future of wallets right here. Look at Ridge.

See, it's not a joke. They're my cards right there. My real credit cards. I use Ridge. I have for years. Okay, guys. You've all heard of Ridge Wallet. by now, but check out the Ridge Wallet 2.0. They made it more modular with improved cash straps,

money clips, and the air tag attachment. That is my favorite feature. Another feature that I love is Ridge's RFID blocking technology. That's right. So if a scammer, if some Armenian fraud expert walks by and tries to, boom, scan your credit cards through your pants pocket and through your wallet, the RFID blocking technology of the titanium contained in the Ridge wallet will stop them. And Ridge has over 50 colors and styles to choose from. You can even get a wallet that features every NFL, MLB, or college team. And perhaps the best part about all of this is that Ridge offers a built-for-life warranty, a guarantee. If you damage your wallet, if you lose it, and you're not able to recover it, Ridge will fix it or replace it for you at no extra charge

for life. For a limited time, Ridge is having their huge holiday sales. Head to ridge.com, R-I-D-G-E.com slash connect to get up to 47% off your order. This is by far the biggest discount they've given all year. That's ridge.com slash connect for up to 47% off your order during their biggest sale of the year. And please support our show and tell them that we sent you. And you've got to use our promo code Connect to get that 47% off. Happy holidays, you guys. Thank you, Ridge.

When did you earn your high roller mark? When did you earn that badge? Well, I'm going to tell you. Okay. So Roger King was playing up if you've ever been to Seasers Atlantic. Have you ever been to Seas Atlantic City? You were too young, that. So Seasas Atlantic City in the pit, the Baccarat Pit, they usually call it the high limit room or the Baccarat pit.

There's a floor. And then there was another kind of level where it's kind of up above where there were also tables. And he was playing there. But he kept watching me play because I kept winning. and he was wondering, what's this guy doing? So he comes over to my table. Again, this is 25 years ago. And he comes over to my table, and he just takes three, $1,000 chips,

and he puts it under one of my bets. I'm betting two bets. And I'm very, very superstitious. And I said, don't touch my bets. And I screamed at him. I go, yo, I knew who he was. Hey, Roger to Dodger, don't touch my fucking bets. If you want to bet with me, ask.

And if you want to bet, we're going to bet two spots, not one. So I took one of the chips, got a half, you know, $500 and $500, and $500, and I put $15,500 and $1,500 under both my bets. I get two blackjacks. So his $3,000 pays $4,500. I said, hey, Roger to Dodger, I put the money on his table as he's playing. I said, we won two blackjacks. Here's your three and here's your $4,500. He goes, keep it, kid.

I said, fuck you, I don't need your money. He goes, keep it. I said, no. And I left it there. So now he keeps watching me. Now, this is the moment that changed my life for me as a high roller. So as I'm playing, he keeps watching me. And I go, hey, Roger, Roger, you want my table?

I said, I'll tell you what, I'll sell it to you for 50 grand. But because I like it, give me 25. And he goes, hey, kid, if you ever bet 25,000 a hand, your fucking ears would fall off. And I went, really? So now as I'm playing, there's this well-dressed, really great guy. His name is Rocco Pietro. And Rocco goes, you know who that is?

I go, yeah, I know who it is. He goes, he blows 10 million a year here. He has it in his budget. He's Kingworld. I said, I know who he is. I said, but tell him to stop fucking with me. He goes, listen, you understand you're beating us every fucking day. You're betting $100, $200 a hand.

Do you know what he bets? I go what? He bets like $20,000 a half. hand. I said, yeah, so. If you were betting Roger King money, do you know how much you'll be up? You're beating us for $250,000. Figure out if you were betting $15,000,000 a hand instead of $2,300. And I went, holy shit. He goes, you'd be up millions. So now I'm thinking, is he egging me on because he wants me to blow to $250,000? Or does he believe in me to like, he wants me to win big? So I keep playing and it keeps saying,

you're never going to be here again, dude. You've got to take a shot. And I'm looking at him. And Roger's looking at me. And he just said, you know, if you bet 25,000 a hand kid, your ears would fall off. And I turned a roco who's standing at the game. And I said, hey, Rocco, how much can I bet a hand?

It goes 15,000, two spots. I said, 15. And I'm looking. I got 250 in front of me. I said, Rocco, that's 30,000. You know, 10 hands, the money's gone. Less than that, eight hands. He goes, nobody's luckier than you.

You're the Joe DiMaggio of Atlantic City. And he says this to me, right? I'm like, fuck. So he's giving me this confidence. He goes, you've got to go for it. You're never going to be here again. He goes, I've been doing this a long time. You've got to go for it.

And I said, how much a hand? He goes, two at 15. I look at the chips. I get two stacks, 15,000, 15,000 in yellow chips. I think there were, no. they were orange. In Atlantic City, the chips are orange for 1,000 in Vegas to yellow. So I get

15 and 15. And I go, hey, Roger the Dodger! There's 30,000! And my fucking ear isn't going to fall off. And now he starts looking at me. So, I took that that 250, up to 750. So from that,

I took the 750, then up to a million. And then I'm like, I'm finally a millionaire. Never in my wildest dreams that I think I'd be a millionaire. So then I have about a million three, a million four. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, total wine and more is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing

beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine and More. Your Memorial Day made easy. Shop total wine and more in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. How long does that take you? I was there for a month getting to 250. The 750 I won like as soon as I started betting big. And then I just stayed there like maybe another week. And this is 15,000, 20,000 a hand now? 15,000, two spots.

Okay. It's 30,000 a hand. Okay. Sometimes it's 10,000. I'm not flat betting. I'm betting different amounts depending upon how the cards are coming out. And what's a typical work day?

That's the thing. I would keep, I'm probably one of the only guys that I've heard of that I would leave my chips on the table 24 hours. So I would leave the table and go to sleep, go out, go get something to eat, I'd come back and my game was always ready for me.

I didn't have to open the game up and say, hey, I want to play. It was my game, it was reserved, nobody could sit there. And do you cash out when you're up 1.3? No, I didn't do that then. I didn't do that then. I just kept the chips. Yeah, I kept the chips there. So then I said, I got to pay these guys.

So I called the one guy up, this Jewish guy. And I call him up and go, where are you at? Now, he's been trying to find it because he's been, knocking at my door and some Indian people that I sold the house to are living there. So he's like, oh my God, anything I'd ever hear from you. I go, dude, meet me at Tiffany's Diner. I got your money. Oh, my God.

Thank you so much. I said, I got you. So he meets me at Tiffany's Diner. I cashed out the chips. 300 grand. I paid him. And I took another 100,000, and I put it in a safety deposit box just in case, right? So I paid a 300, pay the other 100 in a safety deposit.

box and I go back, I got a million on the table. When I go back, I play and the very next day, I blow the million. Fuck, how fast? It's pretty fast. Fast, right? It's pretty fast. Holy shit. So, and that's just losing every hand.

Don't say the word. You're blowing every hand. So I'm like, I don't believe I was here and I just blew this. So a guy that like was there watching the whole thing knew me for years when I was betting, you know, $50 a hand. It's like, you blew that money? I go, yeah, I blew it. I said, but I got a hundred grand back at home at a safety deposit.

He goes, well, don't fucking touch it. Just leave it there. Just, I said, fuck that. I got to get that million back. So I'll never forget Paul Henderson, who was the president of Caesar's at the time. He's, if anybody in gaming knows who he is, he says, RJ, listen, I'm sorry about what happened. I said, don't be sorry.

I said, I'm going home. I got some more money. I'll be back. I said, I'm going to take, you know, a little break. I'm going to come back, win a half a million. I'm going to take a nap. I'm going to win the other half. I want to get it back.

And he looked at me. He goes, really? I go, yeah. So I'll be back. Just keep the game open. So I still had like, you know, a couple hundred dollars in chips on the table. I said, don't close the game. I'm coming back.

So I go home. The bank had to open. So I had to go like overnight and get and stay over. And I get the hundred thousand. I'm driving back. And this guy calls me and says, uh, RJ. Hey, I heard what happened, man.

If you got more money, why don't you come here to the islands or the Bahamas? I said, now fuck that. I'm going right back to Sears. My game's open. I'm coming there. I'm going to get my money back. So everybody thought I was bullshit. I walked into the casino.

And if you know anybody at Seizers, 25 years ago, everybody knows this story that worked there. There's still some guys. Some of the guys are working at the Hard Rock Semino right now that left Seizers to work at Hard Rock in Atlantic City. So I took the $100,000. I come in. I see Paul Henderson. And I go, you kept my game open? He goes, yeah, thanks.

I said, I told you, I'm going to win a half a million. I'm going to go take a nap. I'm going to get the other half a million. He goes, okay, RJ, okay. And sure enough, I took the $100,000. I went a half a million. I get it. It was gray chips at the time.

I think the $5,000 chips were gray. So I get all the gray off the game. I go, I'm taking a nap. I go take a nap. I get something to eat. I come back and I win the other half a million. And then Paul Henderson's looking at it. He goes, you know, RJ goes, I've been doing this for a long time.

You just became, you went from Joe DiMaggio to Babe Ruth because no one's ever won a million, blew it the next day, and then said they're going to come back and win it, and you just won it back with $100,000. Called it. Yeah. So then I said, well, listen, I got to start dressing like a multimillionaire, right? I said, I only got one million, but I can't wear a wife beater all the time. And he goes, what do you want me to do?

I said, give me a, give me like some kind of gift certificate. or a comp for your clothing store. So they had a clothing store. I think it was called Oji. And he goes, what do you want? A couple thousand? I said, a couple thousand. I said, come on, man.

I just won a million, blew it back, won it back. Give me he's like 10, 20,000. So he gave me 10,000. I brought all these nice clothes. And then I tried to gamble. And what I realized is that I couldn't win dressing nice. Most guys, when they go out and gamble, they always want to dress better than they would normally dress in their life, right?

I dress like a bum, and I realized I could only win when I dress like a bum. So I stopped wearing nice clothes. So that's why you see me now. I've dressed like a bum. So this day, you still dress. I don't ever dress up ever because I never would win. Okay. So then I get a call.

A guy sees me playing Atlantic City, and he says, his name is John I forget his last name and he goes hey I've seen your play man you want to go to Vegas I've been to Vegas in the 70s and he goes I could send a private jet for you I'm like really yeah

when you want to go I said tomorrow we went private jet first time 25 years ago on a private jet and listen anybody that's got money you can only eat so many meals you can only buy so many cars but the true level of being like a super rich person is you know flying private you know what I mean

and when you see that and experience that you never want to fly commercial ever again even first class lie flat seats so I flew in with the Paris casino and I literally went on a streak where I took that 5,000 initially that was all the money I had to my life driving down Atlantic City where I heard the YouTube song took it up to 250, then the 750 with Roger King, and then all of a sudden, you know, won the million. I got my money. I paid off the bookies and then blew it all.

I won it back. And here I am in Vegas. And I took Paris for about $4 million. And then I went on a ride where literally... Hang on, hang on, hang on. So you take a casino for $4 million in a matter of weeks? the first trip I went there this was a giant mistake that they made

the first trip I went there I was up about 250 I kept 500 at home I only brought 500 with me you keep it in the room no no I kept it in Philly I kept it in Philly okay so I took it and I took the 250 up to a 500 up to another 250

and I was going to leave and I stayed and I blew the 250 that I was up plus the 500. So now I'm pissed. And the other 500 is not with me. So I didn't have a discount set up. And you have to have it set up. You can't go after the fact after you blow the money and ask for a discount. So I asked the president, hey, I want my discount.

He goes, what discount? You didn't have anything set up. I said, yeah, I came from Cesar's, dude. I get a discount. He's like, well, I don't know about that. So it literally took to overnight for him to get a discount approved. Now, I should have gotten at the time 25 years ago, you would get 20% of a half a million plus. So if you blew a half a million and above, you got 20% back.

So 500,000 is 100,000, a million is 200,000. So I was supposed to get 100. So I'll give you 50,000. I said, dude, come on, that's 10%. And I'm busting his balls. he doesn't want to give it to me. Finally, it took like overnight. He goes, all right, I'm going to give you $80,000.

I go, dude, give me the freaking $100,000. He goes, no, $80,000 take it or leave. All right, give me the $80. He says, but I'm going to give you a check. You're leaving, right? I said, what do you mean I'm leaving? He goes, you're leaving. You can't play your discount.

I said, why not? Because because we got your half a million. We don't want you to win it back with the $80,000. We do that all the time. That's a rule. I said, okay. So I take the $80,000 check. I said, do you sure?

I said, I'd go right across the street to Bellagio. No, you can't gamble. So I waited to like 2 o'clock in the morning. And I go to the cage, I present the check. It's their check. And I get, give me chips. Now, who are they going to call? They're all sleeping, right?

So they made some calls, but they're all sleeping. So I take the $80 grand and I start playing. Now, I'm not supposed to do. that. I take the 80. I win the half back. And I win for like a month I'm there every day, every day. Like I'm staying in the suite and I'm taking 40, 50, 50, 60, 40, 30. And I'm up. I'm up. I got my half a million back, but now I'm up like another 300, another 400, another 800. I run into Dice, Andrew Dice Clay. And he was a hero of mine. I used to love him. Hang on, hang on. Before you go into this anecdote.

Security doesn't come and get you? No, no, no, because I already blew a half. When you blow money, they know you're for real. If you keep winning, winning, winning, and you don't blow money, they think something's up. Now, they did think something's up at Atlantic City, but I blew it back and then won it back. So when you blow money and it's a big amount, they're like, this guy's for real. So they know you're not cheating or assume you're not cheating because you are going down. You're blowing and then winning it back.

Right. Not just win. Did, so now do you realize that you have to start saving now that you're a high roller? No, I'm not saving yet. I'm not saving. I'm trying to get. What's your goal here? I'm trying to get a few money. To you at that time, what was that few money?

At the time, because I was new to being a high roller, I didn't have a goal. Like, I was just winging it, right? Okay. You know, who the fuck thought that I was going to take $5,000 and win a million and then blow it back and then win it back again? And all of a sudden now they're sending private jets. for me. Yeah. So you're bawling out of control every day.

You meet Andrew Dice Clay. And then, you know, I'm coming into Vegas. At the time, I moved to Florida. When I left Philly, I moved to Florida. Beautiful place right on the ocean when I had the first million. After I blew it and then won it back, I moved this Jupiter, Florida, this condo place right right on the ocean. It was beautiful.

So I would go back and forth from Florida. And so I was up probably another million or so. And then everybody knew my story. So when I would come into town, when I would fly into town from Jupiter, you know, it would take me to the strip clubs. Like everybody wanted to spoil me and take me here and take me there. So I would go to the strip clubs and there would be like,

you know, it would be like the Indians like surrounding, you know, one of those, uh, wagon carts, you know. And it was 30, 40 girls all vying for my attention. And I mean, look, I'm a, I consider myself a below average looking guy, but I got a lot of charisma.

Hmm. That I know. And girls like charisma, girls like, uh, guys that can entertain them and I can entertain them. Girls in Vegas like money. Yeah. So they like a lot of money. So they're all sitting. sitting around me and they know

this story about me taking care of my mom. So they're all telling me their mom's stories. Oh, I want to see my mom, but she's here. And I'm just tanned money out, right? So this is the kind of lifestyle that I was leaving. Now, is that typical

for a high roller in Vegas? Like, it gets around? Yeah, well, it's not just Vegas. Obviously, because people know you're going to be passing out money. Well, they, first of the, of all they want to see if you're generous. If you're a tipper, they call it a George. So if you're a George,

they want to be around you because they're just hoping for a piece of the money. Yeah. Right? So I was a very generous guy. Again, I went from Atlantic City buying White House steaks and hoagies, getting to the limousines, filling them up with hoagies and steaks

and bringing them into the casino. And when I say feeding the casino, I'm talking about feeding the entire casino, the floormen, the dealers, the housekeepers, the valet, the limo drivers, like everybody. No one's ever done that. So do you act like that because you're superstitious, because you believe in karma and you want the good chips to, the good cars to fall back on the table when you're playing? No, I think that would be disingenuous to think that way. I just lived that way because I grew up on top of a barbershop, right? And I've had people that were kind to me.

People that wanted to help me. One guy wanted to pay my way to USC. And he, you know, was a friend of mine's father. And he was a really rich guy. So I saw that growing up as a young guy. And I saw my father be this beloved guy that everybody wanted to curry favor with him because he was always doing things for him. So I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to emulate my dad and be that nice guy.

Okay. But I realized later on that being a good guy, helping people that are struggling, it does bring good karma back to you. But I never did it to get good karma. I see. It just happened. I see. You know?

So how did you step it up? How did you step it up from, you know, having a couple million bucks? So how did you grow your operation? Yeah. So it wasn't an operation. It was just a one man. It was a woman being. Yeah.

So it was just flying by the sea. to my pants and then I always wanted to be an entertainment. And then one day I'm at the Paris Casino. And I see one of the guys that I, you know, love Andrew Dice Clay sitting there. And Dice loves to gamble if you know Dice. I don't know if he gambles too much now, but back then, I mean, he's been on Howard Stern where he would get paid a million for a show and he'd go gamble and blow it the next day at some casino.

So I see him and he's watching. me and he's across the you know i'm sitting here and i'm like he's sitting at the table across from me and he keeps watching me and i got you know i got like several million dollars on the table and chips you know stacked like so he keeps watching he's curious so i go over to him and i cash all my chips down to at the time i think i got 25 000 chips no i think it was 100 000 chips Vegas This was one of the only places at the time that had $100,000 chips. Nobody had them. So I got like $2,000 and $100,000 chips.

So I had them sitting at the table. Plus I had other chips, you know, $1,000 chips. And I went over to his table and said, hey, I said, how are you doing over here? He goes, I'm okay. I said, no, no, how are you doing? He goes, I'm good. I said, no, no, I see you're blowing money. How much, you know, how much you down?

No, I'm okay. So I go back to my table and I'm playing. And then I see him say to, who's that guy? And they tell him the story. Oh, this is a guy that came from Philly. His mom died. You know, he took 5,000 and a million. So now he's watching me.

But I'm hearing him talk. So I go back over and I bring the, I think, 2 million in chips, 100,000. So 20 chips. And I go, you're asking who I am? Here's who I am. And I throw the chips down on his table. Two million dollars of the chips. I said, that's who I am.

And it goes, I said, do you want me to win your money back? How much you down? He goes, I'm down 10,000. I said, okay, I'll win it back. So I sat at his table, won the 10 grand, gave it to him, walked away. Now he wants to hang with me. The guy that I love wants to hang with me. So we start talking.

I bring him up to my penthouse suite. He brings Happy Face and all of his guys that he's performing with. You know, Happy Face was his head of security for a while. And they all come up. Joey Diaz was there with him. The other guy, Norton. A few other guys. So we're hanging.

So I said, listen, I want to perform with you. And he goes, what do you mean? I want to perform with you. Where are you playing? He goes, I'm at the Star-Lust. I said, okay, I want to perform with you. He goes, well, what do you do? I said, I can do anything.

You do comedy? Yeah, I do comedy. Can you sing? Yeah. Now, Dice, he loves comedy, but he's a giant fan of Elvis. Like I am. I love Elvis. and I said,

you want to hear Elvis? What do you want to hear? He goes, yeah, do Elvis. So I sing, and I could sing just like Elvis Pres. I can fucking breathe like him. So I start singing, and he's getting impressed. Then it goes, do earthwin and fire. I do earthwin and fire.

And I go, listen, I want to perform with you tonight. And it goes, okay. I said, but we ad lib everything. We don't set anything up. I'll be with a hot chick. you call me out of the audience, you make fun of my chick, that I'm this old guy with this hot chick, and we set this whole thing up.

So we leave, we get each other's number. About two hours later, I'm driving in a limo by the Stardust. And I see the brilliant comedic Andrew Dice Clay in giant letters. So I'm like, fuck. And I see the crane there. The crane's still there.

And I pull over. I go to the crane operator. I said, listen, I'm with the show. you forgot to put with RJ. And he goes, what do you mean? I said, there's another guy performing with Dice. You got to put with RJ. Oh, really?

I don't know about it. I said, here, I give him five grand. I said, just put up with R.J underneath Andrew Dice Clay. And he looks at me and he goes, you're sure I'm allowed to do this? I said, yeah, come on, just put it up. So he puts it up and the letters are like, Dice's letters are like this and my letters are like this. I go, no, they're wrong letters.

Where's the big letters? Oh, they're back at the warehouse. So I said, go, go get him. I can't. It's 45 minutes while. I said, I'm going to give you another 5,000 when you come back. He goes, he gets the bigger letters. He changes the marquee, Andrew Dice Clay with R.J. underneath.

Nice. I called Dice. I have a photographer hiding in the bushes, and he brings happy face in his whole crew. And he goes, what's going on? I said, well, I got to show you something. He goes, you didn't blow the money, did you? I said, no, I got to show you something. meet me at the front of the stardust.

Well, what's going on? I said, just meet me. So he comes. He's got his whole crew there, the Paris Casinos limos there, and I have this guy photographing in the bushes, and I got the actual picture that I could send you of him going. Whatever your thing, it could be anything.

Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic. AI tool things. You can social media your thing. Generate images or videos of your thing. Make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing,

Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. What fuck is that? As he sees my name on the marquee where he's performing. And he looks and everybody's laughing. And then he went from laughing to, now you've got to take it down. I said, I'm sorry.

I said, I don't know where to. crane is, I gotta go. So his manager called him, who the fuck is RJ started this whole thing? But then I performed with Andrew Diceclay in Las Vegas 25 years ago. And, you know, it just was true testament that you could do anything when you're in fucking Vegas.

Today's episode is sponsored by Cash App. You guys know Cash App. I don't need to sell you Cash App. You use Cash App. I know you do. I've checked the demographics. I use Cash App. It's the only way that I send

and receive money. But did you know Cash App does more than you think when it comes to having your back and making sure your money stays your money? If you direct deposit at least $300 in paychecks each month and use the Cash App card for purchases, you can unlock up to $200 in free overdraft coverage. If you overdraft unexpectedly, there are no hidden fees. Manage your money on your terms and take advantage of the free overdraft coverage up to $200 on Cash App today. that is better than what your bank is going to give you. I guarantee it. I put my stamp on that. For a limited time, new cash app customers can earn $10 if they use my code, Cash App 10. That is, C-A-S-H-A-P-P-P-0, Cash App 10 in their profile at sign-up and send $5 to a friend within 14 days.

Terms do apply. Guys, go get you the Cash App. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Pre-paid debit cards, issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC, direct deposit overdraft coverage and promotions provided by Cash app, a Block Inc brand. Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You guys, it's almost the end of the year. Have you taken steps to improve your mental health yet? Or maybe this is a goal in 2026. It should be. It should be one of your resolutions. BetterHelp is the world's number one online therapy platform. The therapist that I go to, who I've been with for years now, I've found on BetterHelp.

And all of my friends who are finally getting therapy, they have all gotten their therapists from BetterHelp. I don't know anybody who goes to a brick and mortar therapist anymore, quite honestly. Because why would you? It's costly. It's time consuming. You might get paired with a therapist that just doesn't fit that you don't like, you don't work with well.

Well, that's what BetterHelp is here for. They've solved all of that. And it works. They've got an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live sales. session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. I guarantee they will find you a therapist that fits your specific needs. For some reason, if you sign up and they match you with a therapist and you don't get along with them and you want to switch therapists, BetterHelp will do it easily, seamlessly, and at no extra cost. There is virtually nothing to lose. This December,

start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash connect. One more time, that's betterhelp.com slash connect. I want to talk to you about gambling. I want to talk to you about blackjack. So you're, you take Paris Casino for four million bucks. Now, how do you not get banned after that? We've had a guy on who was a big, also blackjack player, young kid though. And he says when he. Mickey Mace. That's right. That's right. I don't know if he's full of shit.

He's, well, half the internet thinks he's full of shit. I get a whole story about him. I know all about Mickey Mason. Okay. His name is Michael Meeterman. One thing I do is when I find out anything, I get, I get detail and intel like you can't even leave. All right. I spill the tea. Is that dude for real or is he completely full of shit?

Did he lie to my face for two hours? I don't know how much of his shit is true. He did win money at some point. But what I didn't like is one of the most beautiful places in Vegas, maybe in the world of gambling, is the mansion at MGM. And this guy went there with Mike. I don't know if it was crypto money that he turned into real money. I don't know if somebody gave whatever. But he was doing like really sacrilegious things like peeing in the fountains at the mansion.

Like that's scumbag. So like he wants some money, but I heard he blew it all back. But, you know, them cheating, casinos are not going to risk their license to cheat. And this whole idea of they're cheating at Baccarat. They're cheating at this. They're cheating at that. You know. Well, he says he was cheating them.

That's what he claims. Yeah, well, listen. But he also claims that when he wins a bunch of money, they just don't want you there because you just beat the house so bad. That's true. After some point, they do bar you. I mean, I've been barred all over the world. And I just recently got back in. Yeah, that's 100% true.

But they didn't bar him for that. They barred him because he would, before he would come in, he would have to pay for the rooms sometimes because he would desecrate. He would destroy the rooms. He wanted to be a rock star. Yeah. And he would just like literally tear up the room. And they were tired of fixing the room and all that. And you know, you're peeing in a fountain that other people are coming there.

And there's a fountain in the room and you're peeing in it. I mean, and he's taking videos of it and thinking it's cool to post online. I'm at the mansion. I'm peeing in the thing. So I got no respect for that guy at all. How then did you expand? Like if you would get banned from a casino, where else? in the world have you played?

Everywhere, man. What's an international spot that's like Vegas where high rollers go? Macal. Macau. Macau, Australia, you know, Singapore.

Anywhere with Asians, right? Yeah. Well, the Asian people are the biggest gamblers on the planet. There's a guy named Mr. Takahashi. I shouldn't say the name, but that's his name. And he's probably the biggest gambler that I know or heard of. In one sitting in Bakarach,

he's won 30 million. In fact, I think Dana White has talked about him, but he doesn't use his real name, but his real name is Mr. Takahashi. He's apparently in a kind of a risque kind of business. But a whole blow 30 million and then go down the street to another casino and win 25 back.

But he does this all the time. He is the most sought-after whale that I know of. Wow. Like, unbelievable. Did you become a sought-after? kind of dude? Not like that. Okay. No. Back 25 years ago, yeah, everybody, when I hit it big, again, this is 25 years ago that I won 10 million.

10 million, 25 years ago was like 10 million. Yeah. Like, it's like nothing now. Yeah. So where'd you take that from? From Vegas? No, from Atlantic City First and Vegas. And this is the important thing.

There were times where I was on my last bet, like probably 120 times. and came back. There were times in that run for up to 10 million that in 660-some visits to a casino, I never had an L. I either were, it was even or I was a little ahead, but I never left the table with an L. I would come back later and win it back. That's unheard of. So they heard all this, and they were waiting for me the dump. So I was getting invited everywhere. I mean, I went to the palms. One of the probably hottest casinos that there was in Vegas, bar and on was the palms.

The palms was the spot. And I was one of the first person to go there as far as being invited. And they gave me anything I wanted. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. They were giving me $6,000 bottles of 1982 Petrus. This is 25 years ago.

And I was getting two bottles every time I sat at dinner. Think about that. two bottles every time I, and I don't drink, I would take one home and I'd give the other for the table and they would drink it. They would give me shopping sprees. I would go into the gift shop and buy like every sunglass of, you know, the high-end $3,000 sunglasses. I would get iPods, all kinds of stuff, like endless stuff.

And George Maloof wanted my action. And when you say they wanted you to dump, meaning they wanted you to, they were hoping that I would just lose the whole hand or cash out. Yeah. No, not cash out. I would blow the money that I won back. Because everybody's going to, at some point when they win, no matter how much, big money, they're going to blow it back. So those casinos want to be the casino that you blow it back on. That's what it is. So they wanted that, but I wasn't blowing it back. So I wound up getting barred from there. But I ran into like sports stars. I mean, at the time, you got to remember, George Maloof and his brothers owned the Sacramento Kings. They owned the casino, the palms, and they owned Coors liquor distributing. So they had the cores. They were making giant money. And unfortunately, the Maloof brothers were gambling degenerates too. And they were blown all kinds of money. And this is at the time when Britney Spears was at, like she was the queen of singing. And they're all trying to date Britney Spears and she's coming to private parties.

What they didn't know is Britney Spears was living at my building at the time. where all the Maloos were vying for her attention. But that's the kind of, like I'll never forget, 25 years ago, I'm sitting at a table, and Paras Hilton's there with Nicole Richie, Paras Hilton and her sister. And there was a private concert that Britney Spears was going to be performing

at the Palms in one of the clubs. And when I sat down, they wondered who I was because I was George Maloof's guest. And he goes, is going to be something really special. Just be at the top, be at the top floor in the nightclub. I'll have a table for you. And it'll be something you've never seen before.

I said, tell me what, George, something you've never seen before. So I'm sitting there, and I'll never forget. They said, the Paris, her sister, and Nicole Ritchie said, RJ, what's your last name? I said, Chippriani. And all three of them went, Chippriatti? They thought I was the guy that owned the Chippriani restaurant. And I said, no, that's not me.

But they all were like now all over me thinking I was the Chippriani guy. So all of a sudden, Brittany Spears comes up to sing. She's never sang in a nightclub before and sang. What they didn't know is she lived in my building. I at one point sang for her on the rooftop. There's a rooftop pool. So you get to meet all these kind of people from the higher echelon like Roger King, the multi-millionaires and billionaires to the drug guys.

to everybody in between, the sports stars, the big stars. I've gambled with Hallie Berry. Do people come to you wanting to put money down, like as an investment? They want to give me money to gamble for them, but they always have unrealistic ideas that, again, like I told you, I'll give you a thousand. Can you turn it into 50,000? No, I can't.

Here's your thousand. Well, you don't have it like whales coming to you saying here's 50 grand. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's split the pot. Explain that. Yeah, but, well, people think. think when you're winning that they can give you money you could win for them. But sometimes, I tried it and I've done it. But sometimes if someone's karma is bad, if they are not good people,

you can't win for them. That's what I found. So if I'm winning for me, I might not be able to win for you because you're, you don't have good karma going for you. I believe in karma and all that. Do you separate your money from like an investor's money if you do accept money to gamble for somebody's Yeah, look, if somebody gives me money and I win with it, I give them their money, and I say, okay, whatever you want to give me is fine, that's fine. But if I gamble their money and I don't win, unfortunately, I've done it, and I've blown a lot of money. I'll take my money trying to win their money back. So that's why I stopped doing it because sometimes I can't win the money back and I start blowing my money. And it's just, it's endless.

Well, that's led to, as we're about to find out, that led to the disaster with Owen. Yeah. How long before you met Owen Hanson, were you now living in Vegas permanently? Or when did you move out to LA? No, no, I never lived in Vegas permanently. I always just would go to. What I realize is, as a gambler, you can't live in a casino town. Because if I say to you, hey, Johnny, let's go get something to eat.

Let's go to a movie. No matter where we would go, there's a casino five minutes away. Right. And I'm going to take a shot, right? Right. You need to separate yourself. So I could never live there. So you're an addict too.

Would you call yourself a gambling addict? You know, no, because if I was an addict, I would still go there. I would live there, but I'm not. I know to not live in a casino town. I know to separate myself. Now, aren't you breaking your rules? Because how do you get ahead? How do whales, because if you hit big, then you'll blow big.

Then you hit big, then you blow big. You get your money back. Like when do you start? How do you actually move ahead and put some aside, right? Because you said to be a whale, one of the requirements is you've got to have a big bank rule. So how much would you allow yourself to lose? LOSC. Go ahead.

How much would you allow yourself to blow before you do tap out? Or do you never tap out? Well, that's the thing about me. I don't tap out. Like, I'm relentless. Like people have, there's a guy that booked my action from Atlantic City. his name's Augie and I was at the Foxwoods

playing and he said I was down like a million dollars I said I'm coming back he goes what do you mean I said where's the closest Bank of America what are you doing I said I'm coming back I'm not letting you keep the million

and I would come back with another million and I would win it back so he said to me one time he goes you know most people blow a million they just leave and go home Like, you don't go home. You just, like, keep coming. So, you know, there are times where that has come back to bite me, like, where I couldn't

come to get out. So you've lost at all? Well, not at all, but I've blown, like, a lot of money. Yeah. What's the biggest blow? It's the biggest L. Close to $8 million on trip, one night. Where?

The Mirage. Yeah. Okay. Now we're talking. So one night, you can blow 8 mil. Well, when you're betting three hands is 50,000 splits and doubles, four, five, six hundred thousand in one hand. Yeah, it's easy. And I just had this bad run and just could not come out.

I mean, I started with, you know, three million. And then the three million went to four to five, the six, seven to eight. So, yeah. Right. And are you playing at a private table when is this high stakes? I've played at a private table now since for probably 25 plus years now. Okay. Never play with other people ever, ever, ever.

It's just you versus the dealer. I don't even like, I don't even like when the floorman's there. I don't like when the waitress comes in. Do you need anything to drink? Like, I want to be in a room. It's usually, it's called a salon where it's a private room that people can't even get in. Right. And do you, when you're blowing that bad, do you, are you hoping for a new dealer?

What's going through your mind? What is this strategy? Is there a strategy with blackjack? Well, there's basic strategy. What you should hit, what you shouldn't hit, what you should split. what you shouldn't split, all of that. It's a card that you could literally, I mean, you could go on the internet.

You can go into the gift shop, and it's a little card this big, what you should hit, what you shouldn't hit, and that's called basic strategy. If you follow it to a T, they call it being an advantage player, which doesn't make sense. Don't sell the fucking card in the gift shop.

Like it tells you what to hit and what not to hit, but you have it in your own gift shop. You can go to any casino there is, and there's in the gift shop, but any casino is a basic. strategy card that they sell. Why they sell the card, if you follow the card, they consider you an advantage player,

and then they bar you. They bar you for being an advantage. They want people to, like, hit a 16 against the three. You know what I mean? To split tens, that's what they want. Then they, you know, they have no shot at winning. But they sell the card. So I was smart enough to know about this card and get

the card. So then what is your, what is your specific advantage? What is your advantage over a guy like dice, a layman who's just a whale, but isn't a professional? You know, he, he. Do you just not bow out? Yeah, I don't, I don't bow out. But now if there's, there's a point where I won't go in too deep like I did.

I'm not going for eight again. But there's people like Dice is a, he's not a gambler. He's a comic, right? And he's an entertainer. He's not really a gambler. But he likes to gamble, right? There's a lot of people that gamble. They're not gamblers.

They're just people that, like, like to gamble. I'm a gambler. So what is the difference between somebody who just likes to gamble and a gambler? What is the in blackjack specifically? Is there any kind of strategy beyond? Just like they said, you have to have a big bank roll. You have to know when to stop and you, um, you set a goal. And once you hit the goal, that's it. You're done. And usually you try to tie that money up. Right. Whatever you win with an investment or whatever. Right. And not touch it. Because if you have too much access to your money, you will go and blow 8 million in a sitting. Right.

You know, because you are a gambling addict. You are. Back then, back then, I used to carry, you know, I used to carry $10 million in checks on me. Yeah. You know, like $3 million, a million check, a million check, a two million. That's ridiculous. So I didn't have to go anywhere. I just would go to my room and I had an envelope with the checks and I would just bring another one and put it on deposit.

That was stupid. Right. I was not realizing you can't go that deep in because to get $8 million back, it's like really hard. You could blow it easy, but to get it back is hard. So you blew $8 million at the Mirage. They must have been loving you. Oh, they did. Do you know just by way of mathematics, probability, you're down that much.

If you just stay in, you know that that's going to come back. As long as you have enough money in your bank. You know it's going to come back to you. If you have, if you're blowing that, if you have, you know, 100 million, yeah, you can get it back. But to get $8 million back, it's, again, remember I told you, whatever your bank roll is, think you could probably win 15, 20% of that, but that's it. Okay. So to get $8 million back when you just blew it all.

And I'm telling you, it's when you're blowing, like you're not winning with 20s, that's when you know you got to leave. Like you have 20 and 20 and 19 and you don't win. Yeah. They're beating you. Right. And it happens. Right.

And it was just a bad run. It was almost like a reality check for me. Okay. That I can get beat. Right. And I can get my ass kick than I did. Right. I got my ass kick.

What did you do after that? How'd you regroup? I was in fucking depression for a long time. By bet, buddy. A long time, man. I bet. A long time. Like one thing about it, and this is key, I'm glad you brought this up,

is a true gambler. has to have an annesia. You can't remember the bad shit. Because if you do, you'll never go back to the table. You literally have to take time, let time go by, go take a vacation somewhere and forget what just happened. Right. Or forget it.

You're done. Wow. How long were you out? Probably two or three months. Okay. I had to like just chill to get my mindset and get to forget about it. It's like because when that happens, every day, every moment, every show you're watching,

you're thinking about it. You literally have to like just have other experiences to forget completely about it because the only shot you got when you come back is that event never happened. And that, again, amnesia where I didn't even think about it. I mean, I only thought about it now because you brought it up, but I don't even think about it. What? Did you think about a different career? Like, did you ever think, okay, if I get to a certain amount, I'm done, I'm out?

You know, when you're there, the number always changes. Because when you hit the number, you're like, you know, let me get him a little more. It's like drug dealing. Yeah, it's like, let me get a little more. And look, at the time, I said to people, like, there's only two things that I could do other than this to make this kind of money. One is entertainment and the other's selling drugs. I can't sell drugs.

I don't believe in that. and entertainment is a tough gig to get in. So, you know, I have a lot of friends that are entertainers, and I see what they go through. Yeah. And it's not an easy business. But with me, now, I mean, I know what I'm doing. I got good karma.

I help a lot of people. I've helped a lot of people through my life. I've given easily well over a million dollars away to people. And you've never had a job? You never had a day job since you started gambling? Well, no, it's funny. I remember this documentary that was on where the person that was the drug dealer said, you know, we checked out, but this guy's living in his building, he doesn't have a job.

I mean, he must be fake. No, dude. Like, I've been gambling my whole fucking life. I'm living in the best building in L.A. And I don't work. That's the whole point. I'm a gambler. That's what I do for a job.

I don't fucking punch a clock nine to me. five, I haven't done that since I'm 17 or 18. So I've been gambling for this long. Do you gamble online? No. You don't believe it. No. I don't believe it online.

I think it's bullshit. I think it's a setup. Even when they have the live table games and all that, no. The whole thing about gambling is the experience. You want to go there. You want to fly in the jet. You want to get the sweets. You want to go, holy shit.

Look at the food. Like, I'll give you, for instance, I just recently, went to this, I won't say the name, this beautiful casino, one of the biggest in Vegas. And, you know,

I'd been barred from there for years and I got back in because I've got a lot of notoriety now, not as a gambler, but as a gambler that tries to bring down dirty executives. And I brought down

some of the most revered dirty executives in Vegas. No one ever thought I would, and I did. So I think, think people now welcome me that they see that they don't like these 30 executives either, but they have trouble getting rid of them because there's all these bullshit things. You've got to sign an NDA with them.

So that allows them to get another job right down the street and nobody knows the bad shit that they did. So people have welcomed me now. So when I walk into a casino, they hugged me and, hey, you're a guy who got rid of so-and-so. You're a guy to get rid of, oh, man, thanks a lot. He was a real asshole. So people have changed their opinion of me. Before I was a wild guy, I was winning all this money.

Yeah, I was helping people, but now they see I'm trying to make Vegas a better place. Vegas is very corrupt. Corrupt people run the town. They've run it since the beginning. Vegas, Las Vegas was set up as a criminal enterprise. Of course, so mob town. So that's it. That started off that way.

It's no different. They need money to feed the money machine. How long have you been? been working with the feds? Well, I don't work with the feds, okay? What I do is if I see something bad that happens and it's bad and like it comes in my path, most people would turn left, would turn right or make a U-turn. I confront it.

I'm a very spiritual guy. So I'm like, okay, if this is hitting me, then I'm supposed to do something about it. I feel like, it's almost like I'm a, you know, some of the Fed agents call me Batman. Yeah, you're like a vigilante. And I feel like I'm the guy that's supposed to go after these guys. And I fear nothing. I mean, nothing. I mean, people say to me all the time, especially after that documentary, aren't you afraid?

I go, afraid. I said, that guy's out of jail. He's the one that should be afraid because now I can get to him. Right. Right. So I'm not afraid of nothing, nobody, nothing. So how long have you been Batman, this gambling Batman? The gambling, I'm sorry.

The gambling Batman, I think when I was about 20 years old, I was dating this girl. Her first name was Debbie. And I met her on the street. She was walking down the street. And she looked cute. And I pulled my car over, started talking to her. I started dating her. Unbeknownst to me, she is dating a roofer who happens to be a pagan motorcycle guy who's selling drugs to the mob in Philly.

Okay? For the mob. For the mob. So I fall for this girl. I move her in with me. And then she tells me the story. After I had already fallen for her. All my friends are like, get rid of her.

I'm like, no, I can't get rid of her. So what happens? One day, he's trying to find her. And every time he would try to find her, he would find her, take her to a two, three-story building apartment and lock her there. And he had his pagan motorcycle guys, keep her there. and the only way to get out, she'd have to jump out of two or three-story building.

So this is the girl that I met. So now she's living with me, and he can't find her. So she made the mistake of getting a job at a deli right around the corner from her sister's house. She gets the job. And one day he's there waiting. And I'm in my white Chevy van.

I was doing pretzel stuff at the time. I was selling pretzels. I was selling pretzels from the age of 10. And so his high-speed chase ensues. But unbeknownst to him, she had told me about him going... Where is Daredevil? I'm right here. Don't miss the return of Marvel television's Daredevil born again.

So what's next? I'll be liberated. We're to take this city back. In an all-new season now streaming only on Disney Plus. They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them. I can work with that. This should be tons of fun.

Marvel television's Daredevil, Born Again, now streaming only on Disney Plus. Into a bar one day and hitting two guys with a sold off axe handle, which is what the pagans would use. They were construction guys usually, so they would have the axe handle. They would cut part of it off so they could swing it with one hand and they would do a lot of damage to people. So this same guy's name was Joey. I won't say his last name. he went into a bar and hit two guys and one guy was left brain dead so i found out all this i uh went and bought a gun and uh i needed it for protection so um he had this high speed chase she was smart enough to not

drive to our house where we were living and she drove to his place well of course he got out with the salt off axe handle and i had these nunshucks to try to knock the bat away from the sawed off axe handle and he just went and the nunchucks just flew away from me and I had the gun in my back pocket and I'll just say without going into too many details I I had the gun to his head as he's hitting me like my shoulder my neck bloods everywhere and I said if I shoot this guy in the head he's dead I'm going in jail for life. It's a split-second thing. So I pointed down and I shot him in a leg and I emptied the clip in his leg, dropped them. And from that, I became this notorious guy in Philly

because in one fail swoop, I had the Pagans after me, I had the Philadelphia mob after me and the roofers union. At the time, this is when the roofers would throw you off the building if you didn't have a union card. Right. So I, I didn't. didn't fear anything. And I was able, I'm still here, right? So I was able to go into the union hall and told the union hall guys like, listen, I know you think this is a bad thing that I did, but this had nothing to do with business. And they're like, well, come back here. We want to talk to you. But I had other friends that were roofers. And they told me, don't go back into the room because there's a rubber room and they'll sit you down and hit you with rubber. And they won't be

able to say that you got beat up because it's rubber. You'll have all these internal injuries. And I said, okay, so I knew all this stuff. And then I hired, so I took care of that, the roofers. And then the bikers, I found a guy that was a cop, highway patrol. And his, his job was to find out everything about the bikers. So he was doing construction work. I hired him to do work on my house. And at night, after he was done work, he would open the books and show me where the clubhouse was, who the main guys were. At the time, the guy that was the head guy, was Egyptian, was his name. So I would drive my white Chevy van and find these guys and try to run them off the road.

Hey, motherfucker. So people like, nobody does that. Nobody does this crazy shit. So I was this crazy guy. And then my father was friends with Angelo Bruno, the guy that was running the mob for years. And then he was murdered. So I knew those guys. So for whatever reason, God wanted me around.

But when did you start working with the law? So, well, let me rewind real fast. So when my father was doing his untax cigarettes and all that stuff, there was a point where, you know, I would always unload the trucks. So when they would come, he would say, Robert, the truck's here, and I'd be the one because I was the youngest son. And this one time, I was watching the FBI show with Effron Zimbalist Jr. I don't know if you remember that show.

It's before your time. And I was watching the show. My dad's like, Robert, the truck's here. Come on, come on. I'm like, Dad, just wait. And it was near the end. I wanted to watch the end of the show. So as I'm watching, watching, why he keeps calling me.

Then all of a sudden, like minutes have gone by, like 15 minutes. All of a sudden, the back door behind the barbershop, my father's being walked in by federal agents. He was arrested by the ATF and the FBI. They were watching him for months. I'm 10 years old. I jump up and I start assaulting federal agents. And he's like, son, just go over there, just go over there.

And one of the agents grabs me. And my father had always told me, don't ever talk to the police. Don't ever talk to the FBI. He embedded that into my head. So it wasn't until a guy named Troy Stratos, who had stolen about 100 million around the world. And one of the persons that he stole it from was Nicole Murphy, Eddie Murphy's ex-wife. So I met Eddie Murphy's ex-wife Nicole on the beach in front of my place in Santa Monica. And I had always seen her like for years when Eddie was dating her and then he married her.

And she's the type of girl that I like, exotic looking, you know, not a white girl. And I was like, oh my God. Now, she's on the beach with five of Eddie's kids and they're riding bikes. And one of the bikes like broke down and I'm there with my bike. and I strike up this relationship and I get one of her kids who's a baby and I pick the kid up and I'm wiping the kid's nose

and I bring them back to my place and we become friends well she tells me about a guy named Troy Stratos and he comes to my place and this guy when Eddie divorced her when I met her she was divorced she would just left him

Eddie gave her like I don't know 10 or 12 million she gave it all to Troy Stratos and then she vouched for him and I gave him too much million. Oh, this is a good guy. He's got all these connections with the Saudis. What's it? What's his scheme? What's his money-making thing? He was he he would just steal money

from people. Yeah, but how? Under what pretext? He would invest it for you with his friends in Saudi Arabia and they would buy an oil stock. Okay. So when she vouched for him, I'm like, if she's giving him his, her divorce money, I'm going to give him. I gave him to him. Anyway, I found out that he's a con man. And I got so close to him that at one point, I took him to a casino at the Cosmo and I said, dude, either give me my $2 million or I'm going to put you in jail. And that's the first time that I got the feds involved. And I took him down and he served 21 years in jail. How did you set him up? I didn't set him up. He stole money for me. I just said, Nicole, you want to put him in jail? She's like, yeah, she was, Nicole was, at the time,

her kids, some of her kids were older, but most of them were younger. She was calling me every night crying. Like, what am I going to do? She went from having this big, settlement and this beautiful house in Sacramento to have nothing. She had nothing. Like he stole her cars and everything. So she's calling me and I said, okay, you want to get our money back? I got to get the feds involved. So I just made some calls, got a federal agent interested. And it was with the intel that I had and the intel that she already knew about him. And I just became as close to him as possible. Even though he had two million of my money, I went everywhere with him. I was like on him like you have no idea.

Were you wearing a wire? No, no. Okay. I didn't do that. I just would report to the agent and say, here's what happened. And I found out that he was buying a stock, Facebook, that nobody knew was. He was going to buy Facebook stock on the pre-opening before it was even sold in the stock market. And it was all bullshit.

He was buying the stock, but he was getting investors to think they were buying the stock and he was pocketing the money. Wow. And this is the opening of Facebook. So he was very smart. He said Carlos Slim's wife, I forget the name of Samora, something like that. He used that name to open a company in her name saying that Carlos Slim was going to give blocks of stock to him. And he would sell to them for like $22 a share. Everybody was throwing money at him.

He got top representation, like lawyers were. You're going into these law offices. They're like, this guy's got to be for real. So everybody thought he was. But he had the opportunity. I said, Troy, pay me my $2 million. Give him to Cole her 10 and you're good. If not, I'm going to put you to fucking jail.

And I'll never forget it. Before we went in to the Cosmo, he was sitting there. And he was, he liked everybody to think he was straight, but he was gay. So he, for some reason, was like in love with me. I didn't know this. And he would meet with my wife. and he would take her shop and I was trying to get close to him. And he would tell my wife, it's not if he's going to cheat on you.

It's when. And he was trying to lure her into leaving me so he could have me. I know it sounds crazy, but that's what it was. So at one point I said, look, I want to take you upstairs to the bathroom. So I took him up to the second floor at the Cosmo on the strip, you know, the Cosmo in the hotel and casino. And I said, take off your clothes. So we're in this personal bathroom.

And he went, he went like this. He thought I was going to do something to him. I said, take off of your, I wanted to make sure. sure that he wasn't wired. So I said, take off of your clothes. He went, okay. And he took it all off thinking we're going to do something. I said, okay, if you don't pay me my fucking $2 million and Nicole's 10, the feds are

on you, dude, the FBI. You know, you're lying. I said, I want to put you to fuck in jail, motherfucker. And he didn't believe me. Wow. And about, I don't know, a year later, 21 years. So you were effectively, you were effectively working as an agent, reporting to them, letting him know what he was up to, his movements.

At some point, at some point, they wanted me to wear a wire. I didn't do it for that case, but there were other cases that I did. But I, look, I'm a nice guy. When somebody fucks me over, like, I'll give you for instance, when Owen Hanson. Hang on, yeah, I want to move up to that. Because this is, so this is like your first foray into vigilanteism, law enforcement. So how many, leading up to when you met Owen. Enhancing. How many of these

FBI undercover cases had you worked? Well, Troy Stratos, I was actually doing... Had you taken down those two guys that you mentioned the casino executives? No, no, that was later. Okay. Okay. I didn't know... I didn't have the intel

of being able to do that. I have the intel now because I've been gambling for 48 years, right? Are these just things that come across your plate? Like I said, it confronts me. And instead of taking a left or a right or making a U-turn, I confront it like the guy, Joey, that was dating this girl and she left him for me, I just figure like, okay, this is hitting me for a reason. So Troy Stratos hit me.

At the same time, there was a guy that I gave money to buy a building that I put my mother's name on, who is Regina, who I love. and he was conniving me out of money and then I ran into Owen Hansen. So at the same time, I forget the dates, I was trying to take down three guys, Troy Stratos, Owen Hanson, and this other guy, David, I won't mention his name, who was a pump and dump stock guy.

So Owen obviously had no idea that you were working with the feds when he met you, obviously. Well, you know what's funny? I wasn't, I wasn't like, I don't like to say working with. Just quit splitting errors with me. You were working with the feds. There's no two ways around it. Working with means you're getting paid.

Sure. I wasn't getting paid. I was doing it for free. Don't, please, don't insult our intelligence. Working, helping. Helping. I like to say helping. Sure.

Sure. You are conspiring with the federal government. That's all good. What do you mean conspiring? It's not conspiring. I'm helping them. That's right. You're working.

When you're working on a project, you're working. I got a bad guy that I bring them to say, hey, this is a bad guy. this is what he's doing. Fine. Troy Stratos was taking money from people and destroying their lives. I understand. I understand.

This is no judgment. I just don't want the pushback. You're working with the feds. So you meet Owen. Now, in the documentary, where you were talking about Owen now. Yeah. That's right. We're moving towards the grand finale.

You look better in person than you do on the podcast. I'm just thinking, thanks, buddy. I appreciate that. So are you really? running a gambling thing where you're, it's like a charity? No, I have a thing called Robin Hood 702. Okay, yeah, because you go into that break.

I put up a website. I was actually with my wife. We're in Florinopolis, which is a beautiful island town off of Brazil. I met my wife in Brazil. She's here with us right now. It's the same person. Anyway, we've been together for, you know, many years. So I first came up with this idea like,

God is blessing me with this gambling. I should bless people back. So I started this thing. Okay, I'm sitting there in this bedroom. I rented this house right on the ocean. And I'm like, okay, Santa Claus 702. I'm like Santa Claus. I don't look like fucking Santa Claus.

I'm trying to think of a name, right? So then I'm like, Robin Hood. That can't be Santa Claus. I'm not fat and have a, you know, shubby face. Robin Hood. That's a cool name. Robin Hood, Vegas. Robin Hood 7.02. So I start to go to the internet and I buy the names. Robin Hood 702,

Robin Hood. Okay, I'm going to be Robin Hood. I call a guy. I want to put a website up and I start this whole thing where I'm going to help people with gambling. I'm going to give back. I'm going to help people with gambling. I'm going to help people through my gambling. Right. I'm going to help pay their mortgage, pay their rent, all that shit. No strings attached. No strings attached. Okay. So I put a website up and it sounds like really great. I'm going to do this, but then I start getting all these people uploading videos and pictures. You know, I wanted to help somebody that needs like 25, 30 grand. I'm getting people ask me for a half a million, 800,000.

And I'm like, I'm giving people false hope. So I'm getting like all of these people. Some could upload a video. Some could upload a picture and tell me their story. So I started doing it that way. But then it got to the point where I was just giving people false hope because there's no way I'm going to help people that need 800,000, right? I had to then set the parameters between 25 and 50,000.

So that's how the person that knew about me was a girl named Christa Velarde. And I could say her name because she's in the news. She was a girl I was dating. I don't want to say that it was my girlfriend. Okay. was at the time I thought maybe this could be my girlfriend. The more I got to know her, something just wasn't right. She was too beautiful.

She had these two beautiful kids. Things just didn't, she never had to worry about money. She's Mexican. She's Mexican. Yeah. And she was going back and forth to Mexico a lot. And I met her, I met her in Santa Monica at the lobby. where I go every day.

The lobster right on the pier. You know about the place, right? Red lobster? No, the lobster. Right on the pier in Santa Monica. Beautiful place. So I was on a date with another Mexican girl who was a flight attendant of a Mexican Airlines. And I literally see, do you want to tell you a story?

No, not really. I'm trying to figure out, okay. So she's the one that introduces me. How long are you running Robin Hood 702? The website? Yeah, before you met Owen, because Owen saw you on the, you got big. Like Fox News ran this whole promo on you. Yeah, yeah.

And that's how Owen saw you and thought to- He didn't see me from that. He didn't see you. How did he figure out who you were? He figured me out because the girl that I was dating, Christo Valade. I see. He married her.

That was his wife. That was his wife. She told him about me. Okay. He didn't know anything about me. I was on, yeah, it blew up. I was on Fox News several times. Right.

But he didn't know me. He only went to the website after she told him. I see. Okay. Crystal clear. So how long after you stopped seeing Krista did Owen marry her more or less? Is it a couple of years? Years.

Probably maybe seven years. I don't even know. Okay. I met her early like 20 some years ago. Okay. I was dating her 20 some years ago. I see. So you've been running this.

How long had you been running Robin Hood 702? How many people had you helped? How much money? How much money did you give it away by that time? I probably gave, you know, I was putting it on the news. Sometimes Fox News would cover it, but then I was doing it without putting it on the news. So I probably gave away, like I told you, about a million, over a million dollars. Wow.

How much of your winnings at it, like how did it work? I would just find, I'd hear a story about somebody that needed help. They were losing their house. They needed to pay the rent. They had an operation for the kid, and I would just help them. And you would just go gamble, make a little bit. I would go and gamble for them. But at the time, when I was going to have cameras there, I would go and gamble with the cameras there, which is a lot of pressure.

Because you've got to win, right? So I would just do it on my own and just say, hey, I'm going to try to win you some money. And I would just go to a casino. Okay, you need $30,000. Here's 15. I won $15. Is that cool? Or do you want $20?

That's what I've been doing on a regular basis. Sometimes it was on the news. but most of the time it wasn't. Why the news? Why put it out there? Is it because you wanted to promote it? Well, no, they found me with the website. Fox News came to me.

They wanted to do a story about it. And then it blew up and everybody wanted to. Then there was a reality show and Ryan Seacrest came to me and they all wanted to do a TV show about Robin Hood helping people. That's where it started. That's where it got big. But we never sold the show because then, gambling was frowned upon.

Networks didn't want to be in business with gamblers. Now everybody's in the gambling business. But back then, wait, he's a gambler and helps people. Sounds like a cool idea, but we don't want to promote gambling, so we never sold the show. Right. I see. I see.

Okay. So you're running this. Things are going good. You're up. Sounds like. I get a call from Christopher Valardi. Okay. Who still, you know, spoke with an accent.

I'm sure she still does now. And were you surprised? No, no. You hadn't heard from her in a while. I, I, to say this in front of my wife, who's literally to my left, I, I was dating her. I had a bad feeling. I did what they call a reverse Casablanca in Vegas. I left her on a tarmac.

I got on a private jet and left her, her best friends, her sisters, everybody on the tarmac, and flew away. I wanted to embarrass her. insult her because I knew if I didn't, I would run back to her, but I had a bad feeling something wasn't right. Okay. It was too good of a situation. So this chick was toxic. I love this kind of love. No, it wasn't she was toxic. It was something that just, you know, when you got two little kids running to you, hugging you and kissing you and saying, Roberto, Roberto, kissing you on the lips like you're their father, something just didn't make sense. So I figured, let me do this reverse Coz de Blanc.

I'm a dramatic guy. I can't just break up with a girl. You're Italian. So I did this deal. And then eight months later, we started seeing each other again. And we would, you know, we had, you know, friends with benefits. Sure. And then later on, years later, she said, I want to introduce you to a guy.

That's right. And what's the guy do? Well, he wants to help you with your charity. I said, oh, well, what do you mean? Help me. He wants to give you money to gamble with. I said, Krista, you know I don't win all the time. No, it's okay.

He's a businessman. He's got a lot of money. So we met at the Fairmount Maramar. Now, in his documentary and in many podcasts, he says that we met, he and I. We did not meet. Krista Valarde and I met at the Fairmount Maramar. And she got him on the phone. We never met in person.

The first time we met, and look, I don't mind someone trying to, you know, trying to restart their life and have a good life. And that's what I'm hoping he's doing. But I just don't like you lying about me, like telling the story and it's a lie. So she said, I want to introduce you to this guy. He wants to give you money to gamble with to help somebody. He loves it. You help people.

And I tried to discourage her. I don't want to do it. It's too much pressure. No, no, it's okay. He's got a lot of money. She put him on the phone. He talked to me. I'm coming to Australia.

Okay, when? I told him the date. I forget the date. It's in my phone. So he was in Australia on the phone talking to me. Because in reality, he had about $5 million in drug money that he needed to move. He had more than that. Yeah, it might have been closer to...

What I saw, he had more than that. Okay. So you actually saw the loop. Well, let me just slide a real fast story. So she set it up, okay, when you're going to come? And he showed up at the Sydney Four Seasons where I was staying. Okay. One of my friends that I've known for many years

was running the Star Casino. There was no one that was setting up the Star Casino. There's no sister property that Owen said is a sister property. There's no host that set it up and they rolled out. It's all bullshit. Okay, but hang on for a second. You were already going down to gamble at the Star Casino? It's Sydney, yeah.

Okay, so you had already made plans to go down there. I was going there, yeah. Anyways, it wasn't because Owen said... I had set up there because I was going to help somebody in Sydney, Australia to take this Robin Hood thing international in a very big way and do it in Sydney. So I had a guy that I knew, Richard Wilkins, who's a very big entertainment reporter there. I said, I'm coming. I'm going to announce that I'm looking for a family and I'm going to win money for them the next trip in Sydney, Australia. Well, that's quite a coincidence then that you,

Owen has to launder drug money in Australia and you just happened to be going down to Australia. I was, well, I was going there for this thing and I told Owen, I'm going to be in Australia. I'm going for this thing. When are you going? I told him to date. Owen was already in Australia. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, he was already in Australia.

You just happened to be going down there. It's not because you were going there to meet Owen. Okay. No. Gotcha. So then he met me at the bar at the city. Now, I think he was in Australia when he spoke to. me on the phone. I don't know. He might have been in L.A. I don't know.

Right. I think he was in Australia. And I went there, I forget, a week or two after this meeting with Krista. And he showed up at the bar. He said, I'll meet you at the bar. And we met at the bar at the Sydney Four Seasons. And we talked. And then he brought me to his apartment and said, I want to give you money to gamble with. And I told him, I don't always win. Right. And he said his name was Junior Duluca at the time. That's right. I said, I don't always win.

And he said, it's okay. It's okay. And he said something to me that kind of locked me in with him. He said, no, no, no. Krista said, you're solid. No, no. I believe in you, man. No, no.

I believe in you. And he said that to me. So I'm like, I believe he believes in me. So I'm like, all right. He said, come to my place. I went to his place. And it was a very, like, shitty apartment, to be honest. He was a stash spot.

Yeah. And I went and he went over to the cupboards and started opening. Like he says in a documentary, I was requesting to me. No, I have to me luggage. I've had to me luggage for a while. But I didn't request it. He had these bags, you know, luggage and started filling it with the money. And I'm looking.

I'm like, as a gambler, you know how much money is. Right. You could put money in your hand and you know the amount. Right. Like it's unbelievable. Yeah. So I see it. And I could see there's well over five million, right?

Because I could see it. They're like, and he's just got it in there. In the cupboards. Yeah. And there's no lock on the, on the, it's cabinets. You know, it's kitchen cabinets. There's no locks on the freaking thing. Yeah.

So I'm like, what the frig is? So I'm thinking, something's up here, man. Like, and he puts it in one suitcase. You think? He puts it in one suitcase and then he puts it in another. But he gives me a million first, and it's a suitcase like this big. All hundreds. No, 50s.

Okay. So it's double. You know, it takes double the money to make a million, right? Like, people think a million dollars is a lot of money, you could carry it around in a duffel bag. It's not like. If it's hundreds. If it's hundreds. But if it's 50s, it's double the money, double the amount of bills.

So it gives me a million. He goes, you know what? You know what? Let me give you a half. Let me give me more. And he had this other little back. and he put five on it. I said,

and I kept, I kept trying to talk him out of it because I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't, I'm like, okay, I know that I have money and I've kept it,

but I've kept it locked up, right? It kept in a, you know, safety deposit, whatever. Maybe this guy feels comfortable living here. There was a,

there was like a floor guy there, like when you walked in, there was like a door, not a doorman, but a guy in the front desk, you can't just let anybody in. So I said, you sure you want to do this?

Yeah. So I take the money. It's a suitcase and a carry on. And I walk back across, you know, right around the corner to the four seasons. And I call a cab and I go to the star. He didn't come with me. That's the first time that I met him. Okay.

He sat at the bar talking and we walked to his place and I took this money in two separate backs. So what was the agreement? He didn't say, he didn't say here's a percentage. He said, here, I'll give you. you a million and a half, try to win somebody. I said, I'm going to try to win like, you know, maybe 100, 200,000. He goes, okay. And then you just give it to the people, give me the money back. So you're going to cash out. I'm going to give them the money back. He's fronting the deal. But he made it, the documentary and his story makes it seem like you're in on

it. No. You know this is drug money. You know this is money laundering. And you're going to go in, lose some money or win it, whatever. You're going to play for a while. No. which makes sense to me. Either you win or lose whatever it is. You're going to play for a little bit. Then you're going to cash out. And even if I give you a million and a half and you lose 250, whatever, you're still going to come out with a check for me for 1.25.

Is that not? No. Was that not what happened? No, that's 100% not what happened. The first thing is it gave me a million and a half. You can't take a million and a half in cash to a casino. Yeah. gamble, however where, and say, give me a check.

Whatever you bring, they give you back. If you bring cash in, they give you cash back. If you bring a check in, they want to give you a check back. That's how it works. Okay, so if you don't use up the full amount of, if you bring a million dollars in cash and you don't use the full amount, they give you cash back. They don't give you a check back. If you win 100, $200,000, they'll give it to you any way you want.

If you win that amount of money. They'll give you a check, wire. Right. Whatever. But the 100,000 you started with, the principle. Whatever it is, if you brought it in by a wire, they'll wire it back to you. I see. If you brought it in a check, they'll give you a check.

If you brought it in cash, they will give you cash back. Okay. So it's not so easy. They don't want to launder. They don't want to launder money through casinos all the time. Correct. So that's why Owen is just bullshitting. He has no fucking clue what he's, he knows what he's saying.

He's just trying to incorporate me into his story. Or maybe he didn't know that at the time. You know, he's also. He's saying that it happened. He said multiple times about I had my host in Vegas. The sister property was the star. There's no sister property of a Vegas casino. Okay.

So he, you have a million and a half of his dollars. You still think that this is, he wants to invest in your charity? No, no, he's not investing. He's giving me front money to win with. And then we give it to a family in need. I see. And then I got you. And then.

I'm giving him the money. Got it. And he said, I just want the money back. I don't need like a percentage on it, whatever. Okay. And here's what happened. Okay. And he must think that he's getting a clean check back. He must think that. I don't know what he thought. He didn't say, bring me a check back. But he had to have thought that because the biggest problem is the bulk of the money. You can't bring that back. You can't bring that back. So he needed, he needed a check from you. Yeah. Or chips. Well, chips is no good either because now he's got chips. You can only cash it. You can't move chips. You can't take chips to another casino unless you're in Vegas. I see. You could use chips from other casinos, but you can't take Australian chips. So you play with them in Vegas. Right.

Right. Okay. So it's no good either way. So that's... He didn't think this out too properly. No, he didn't think it out, clearly. So let me just tell you the story. He thought he was getting a check back.

That's a huge piece of information. I had no idea about that. Yeah. About that how casino is operate. Everybody who watches it thinks that I blew this money. You're a bad guy. I mean, I'm getting death threats from these freaking keyboard warriors. They have no fucking clue where they're dealing with.

I call people up. I find them. I say, Hey, you want to, you want to meet me somewhere and tell me in person what the fuck you said, just said on the fuck. That's what I tell them. Anyway, so, um, so I take the million and a half and I went about, I don't know, like 150,000.

I call them. Hang on. Walk me through the step by set. Did you get, you got a million and a half of chips? You got all the chips? Okay. The other thing that he says, I went to the table with a million, imagine going to a table with a million and a half dollars and they're going to give you chips.

Do you think that happen? Well, if they have $100,000 chips like they do in Vegas. Wait a minute. Do you know how much a million and a half is? Do you think I'm going to take two suitcases to a table and start dumping chips and they're going to, they got to count it out on the table? You got to go to a room. You go into a cage, a private cage, and they have counting machines where they count the money. I put the money there and then I go to the table and it took a while to count that money, even with machine counters.

And then I say, okay, give me X amount of dollars. they give it to me in a marker. That's how it works. Got it. Okay. So I took this money up to about, I don't know, 100, 125, 100, I forget the number. Okay. I call them.

We're done. I made this. Where are you at? Oh, I'm not here. What do you mean you're not here? I want to give you the money. I want to give you to my. I got money to, no, no, I'm not here, dude.

Just give it to me later. I said, but I got you. I want to give it back to him. He doesn't want it. That's what's thinking, but why doesn't he want this back? Why does he trust me? Is it this, is it Christa that he? Like, what's going on with Krista?

I asked her, are you involved with this guy? No, no, no, no. He's a business guy that I know, blah, blah, blah. And I kept saying, dude, I stayed later than I was supposed to. I said, I want to give you this money back. No, no, it's good. We're good. We're good.

Give it to me in America. So I leave. I get, because I was gambling. Yeah. Because I knew the guy that was running the joint, I got a check. I got a check. Okay. I wasn't supposed to get a check.

Yeah. We just have to take your word for it, but okay. No, I wasn't really supposed to get a check. I'm just being, I'm just telling you. I took the check to Vegas, to a casino. Now, I tried to say, hey, let me, let me get my money out of it. Oh, no, you got to play. You can't, what do you mean?

You want your check back, we'll give you a check. Well, no, I don't want the check back. I didn't want the check. I wanted the money. I wanted cash. So I started playing. All of a sudden, the million, six, something that I had was down to 200,000.

People don't tell. Owen knows that story. He didn't say it. It was down to 200. Now I'm calling him, dude, you asshole. Now I'm down 200,000, dude. Like, you should have taken your money back. That's all right.

I believe in you. You'll get it back. I stayed there for like a couple weeks at this casino. Big casino in Vegas. I won't mention the name. I won like a million. I said, I'm up to a, a million. I said, I'm going to, I'm going to make a couple more dollars and then I want to meet you

and give you this million, dude. Okay, okay. So I think I had a million to, mind you, I had a million $6.50. Million five plus a $150. I meet him in America with a million dollars at the Fair Mount Maramore. The check. No, no. Cash. So you cashed out in Vegas. Cash. Got it. Why? Why did they give it to me because I blew the money back. Right. So in essence, even though I gave them a check and I was supposed to get a check back, I blew most of the money. It was down to like the whole million five almost, right? You made it back. I made it back. So they said, okay, we'll give you whatever you want back. That's what they do. Like if you blow, if you go there with 10 million in a check and you blow it

and then you take another 100,000 and win 10 million, they'll give it to any way you want because you want it back. Right. That's how it works. Got it. So I gave, I gave, I gave, I gave, I gave, I gave, the million dollars in a duffel bag. We met at the Fair Mount Merrimar at a restaurant and I went here. Here's your million. I still owe you 500. Okay. I'm going back to win the rest. I go back. Now, by the way, how is Owen at this point?

Like, is he okay with that? Yeah, he was fine. Like, he was fine. I'm thinking, wow, this guy's like, and I kept breaking his balls like, dude, you know I had your money in Australia. No, no, it's right. Don't worry about it. You'll get back. He kept saying, I believe in you. He'll get it back. And he, you never asked him what the fuck he was doing. Why, why he's been this hard to get a hold of? No, he said he was traveling. He would always say, I'm travel. I'm not there. I'm not in Australia. I'm traveling. He would always say he was traveling his bag. He was always, like, like shirts on with cufflings and all this

bullshit. He was always, so I just thought he was a business guy. I mean, I met businessmen before, right? So I thought, okay. And it's not the first time, just so you know that people have given me a million dollars to gamble for. I have a friend that did it multiple times and I won like money. So man, not in a apartment. Not an apartment. No, but he went to the bank and gave me a certified check and said here, not into an apartment that had all this money and cash. But as a gambler, unless you're a gambler for as many years as me, you see it. There's people that just sit on cash. Did your shit sit on cash? They have to because they don't want to put it in a bank. Because if you put too much money in the bank on a regular basis, banks will close your account.

They don't want to be in business with somebody's going in and out. It's happened to me, many times. Have you ever had tax problems? Have you ever been the IRS come after you? When I first came into town, they thought I owed them all this money because when you fill out CTRs, they have what you have, like when you cash in for over 10, they fill out a CTR. When you take over 10, they fill out of CTR. Yeah, over 10,000.

So I had all these CTRs, but they forget when you're playing. Sometimes you, you know, blow the money back. That it's, even though you have CTRs, you blew some of that money back. So, yeah, I had some problems initially when I first got, when I first came to town, but it was taken care of. Okay. I had a tax guy that seems like it gets really hairy because you're losing a winning, and losing and winning.

Yeah, yeah. And you're churning money. You're churning money. The money's crossing the table back and forth. so many times you can't even count the money. You're literally gambling hundreds of millions of dollars if you think about it because it keeps going back and forth and back. You win a hand, you lose it.

Anyway, so where was I? Well, so this is brand new to me because Owen leaves all of this out, according to him and the documentary. Of course he does because he doesn't know. As a game one. As people haven't seen the documentary, he claims that he gave you a million and a half and you lost effectively all of it in Australia. No, that was the second time.

That was the second time. Okay. First time he gave me a million and a half. So let me finish the story. And then we'll talk about the two and a half. So the first time I gave him the million. Then I met Krista. I think I gave her $250.

Forget the number. Because as I was winning it, I wanted to get rid of it and get it back to him. So I met her. And I'll never forget. I was with my wife at the time. She knows about this story. And I don't know. I forget if we were.

were married or not, I think we were. We might have been just, she was maybe just in the country. I can't remember. So I meet her at the fair, not the fair amount, at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I said, Krista, meet me there. So I parked my car in the front where the valet is. I meet her inside. And right by that little restaurant room where everybody goes to Polo Bar, there's like

a little chair there. And I'm sitting there and she comes and she's, you know, looking beautiful and sits down. And I have a bag with $250 in it. Now, it's not a lot of money to have to conceal because I think about $250, it's, you know, it's not that much money. So I had the bag and I put it down and she puts her hand on my lap. Now, I don't notice she's married to Owen. I have no idea. She puts her hand on my lap and she says, let's make love.

And I went, I said, I'm with somebody. She's out in the car. I'm with somebody. And I said, I think she was my girlfriend at the top. And I said, I can. And she goes, why not? Don't you want to make love? And I go, no, Christ, I said, come on.

I got to go. Look, I'll follow you home so I know you got home safe with the money. I said, I got to go. I followed her back and that was it. So I still owed him another $250. So I think, 250, yeah, $250. So I think I go back and play and I had some more money. And I call him, I say, I got some more money.

And he goes, give it to Big Jim. I said, who's Big Jim? That's my father, big gym. So his father comes pulling up in a pickup truck. He meets me at the Fairmount. The Fairmount's like a half a block from where I live, right? So that's why we met there. And he pulls up in his pickup truck.

And I hand him the money. And I'm thinking, okay, his father's, you know, he looks like a working guy. I can tell he's a construction guy. Okay, well, maybe that's where he made the monies and construction. I don't know. But I gave him some of the money. I still owed him about 100. Right?

still owed him about 100. And he goes, don't worry about the 100. I said, no, no, I still owe you 100. He goes, that's all right. Don't worry about it.

So in essence, because I blew all the money back, I wound up not giving him his full million five. And the hundred and some that I was up was gone. And I still owed him 100 plus a little 120 something like that. And what do you think he's, what do you think the point of him doing this is? Do you realize now that it's a money laundering operation?

No, I think now that because he didn't, wasn't like threatening to me. He wasn't, he was nice. He was like, look, I'm going to buy some property and maybe you could wire. Like he was telling me, why don't you wire the money to Costa Rican? I'm buying this house. If you want to just wire it. I said, no, I'm not going to wire it. I said, I'm going to win it back and then I'll give it to you in cash or whatever. Like he was trying, he was talking very nicely. I didn't think at, at all that I thought there was a chance, but I wasn't 100% sure. When the father came into the

picture, that kind of like made me think, well, this has got to be cool because I'm looking at the father. He's got, you know, you could tell a person that works hard, their hands are working hands. If guy's father's not going to be involved in any kind of nefarious stuff, maybe they're just construction workers, they're making, I don't know. So then when the second time, Kim, that's when I'm like, well, wait a minute, I bought a Fox News reporter with me and I said, look, something's not right. I got to figure this out. Okay, what's the second time you went back to Australia and why? Month or so later.

Month or so later. And for your foundation, or is it to gamble again for Owen? I was supposed to, like, pick the people that I was going to help. Right. So when I got there, he knew I was coming. I didn't even know how he found out the room or not, you know, what he did. I was in the presidential suite. He showed up with two giant suitcases.

And I mean giant, they were like this high with $50. bills. I didn't see him, of course, and there was two and a half million in it. Now, in the documentary, I think they say that the money smelled and it was wrapped in plastic. That's all bullshit. Wasn't smelled. Didn't smell. Wasn't wrapped in plastic. It was just $50 bills piled up in these suitcases. But when he knocked on the door, he didn't have the suitcases there.

The suitcase were off the side. I peeped out the door and I saw him. I opened the door and that's when he pulled the suitcase. I said, what are you doing? Let's do it again. I said, I don't have a good feeling about this. And again, his name is Jr. He goes, come on, let's do it.

And he kept trying to press me. And then he walked into the room. He closed the door where I'm in the suite. Then he started to change on me. Started saying, hey, you know, I know where you live. I said, yeah, you do? Now, Krista was at my place many, many times, right? That's the person that told him where I lived.

And then he said, I know where your wife is wearing. You want me to tell you what she's wearing right now? So I'm like, oh, really? And then he started to go, look, you're going to do this. I said, you know, I don't want to do it. No, you're going to do it. I said, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to tell me what I'm going to do.

And I'm looking at the guy. You know, he's 20-some years younger than me, but I'm a pretty tough kid. And I'm thinking, all right, this guy's going to get tough for me. I'll get tough with him back. So he kept back and forth. But then he started, again, threatening my wife and saying that he knew, now I'm in Australia. I'm 18 hours away, right?

If they got her, if they're going to be sitting. like and try to grab her. I'm 18 hours away if I get on the plane that minute, right? So I'm starting to think and he goes, look, we have people here. We have people to the airport, people at the hotel. You're going to do this. So I'm like, I'm thinking, all right, because we got people right outside this room. So he's getting me a little nervous that he's got all these people there.

And I believe him, right? He's got two and a half million dollars. He's got two and a half million that I didn't even open the fucking suitcases yet. And he said that that's what. It's there. So I said, okay. I said, he goes, you're going to do it and just do the same thing. You know, go win a little money and help a family.

And that's it. Just give me my money back. I said, yeah, but I tried to give you the money back before. You won't fucking take it. And he goes, just go win some money for a family. Okay? You and I will be cool. I said, but you understand, like last time, I blew all that money back because you

didn't want to take it back. I don't always win. And it kept on. I believe in you. you'll do it. And I said, but I don't like you fucking putting that fucking,

you know, like threatening me. Because that's not threats. I'm just saying, you're going to do it. I said, well, I don't like being told what to do.

So then went back and forth, back and forth. And then he got a little, look, you better do this because you're not going to get out of this country unless you do it.

So I went, all right, I'm going to let this fucking guy think that I'm going to do it. This guy has no idea what he's deal with. All right. I took the money.

Now I'm thinking I'm being watched. Right? So I take the money. I literally get a fucking taxi with two and a half million and I get a big taxi and I put the fucking one bag in and the taxis in Australia

all have little cameras that, you know, to film you. So I'm thinking, okay, I'm on film if somebody tries to rob. Like I'm thinking, is he giving me this money and then he's going to rob me and say that I own two and a half like I'm thinking all this shit.

But again, I had a bad feeling. I brought a fucking seasoned reporter that was embedded with the troops in Iraq multiple times. His name's Rick Leventhal, who by the way, just interviewed him. He just interviewed him on his podcast, which is crazy. So when I brought Rick with me, he's married at the time. And he was one of the first guys to report it on Robin Hood 702 with Fox.

He was a seasoned reporter. And I go, dude, something's not right. I need you here. If shit goes bad, I need you to report on it. So I thought he was going to be there by my side. This fucking guy was gambling his brains out. And he calls me up, dude, I'm down 20 grand. I need 20 grand.

And I'm like, what the fuck? I go, Rick, like, you're not even around when I need you. This fucking guy, something's up. He came to my room. So I told him the whole story. And all he cared about is getting his 20 grand back. So I give him 20 grand here. I need you here.

And he wouldn't leave. So he's at the star already. I didn't get there yet. He just went to the star, but he didn't travel together. and I sit at the table with the two and a half million. Now, anything in that podcast, not podcast, anything in the documentary, the reenactments, that wasn't real. They didn't put in there that this is, you know,

usually when you see a reenactment, they didn't put in there, reenactment. Like I even called the U.S. attorneys that handled the case the other day, like a couple weeks ago, and said, did you watch that documentary? I said, none of that shit's real. The reenactments, you know, when I'm confronted, by him and that mixed martial arts guy,

that's all fake. Like, it was all fake. The only thing that was real is when he was following me and I was driving a Prius. That's the only thing that was real. All right, so what was real? What happened?

So I sat at the table and he tells some of the people that he's been interviewed that I was betting 90,000 a hand, three spots. The most I was able to bet then was 20,000 a spot. Now, if you had splits and doubles, it's, you know.

But he was, so one of the, I think it was Vlad TV said, so he's betting 90,000 a spot? Yeah, he goes, so that's 270 a hand? Yeah, well, yeah. I wasn't betting now. I was betting 20,000 a spot. So I left it up to the gambling gods.

I'm thinking he's got people everywhere watching me. He told me he's got people to casino, told me he's got people to the customs. Okay, I'll put it on a little show. I'll leave it up to the gambling gods. And when the FBI interviewed me, they said, well, what did you do with the money? I said, I left it up to the game.

gambling gods. If I was supposed to win, I was going to win. If I wasn't, I didn't. So I took that $2.5 million and blew through it all. Like, all of it was gone. Just 20 a hand every time. 20 large. It was, no, it was, I think I was allowed to bet two hands at the time. I'm not sure. Two or three hands, 20,000. Okay. So about 40 to 60 a hand. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And the money left. Now, how long were you in there? How long? I wasn't, I wasn't like when he says like. It was about less than a day. I was there a couple days. And when I blew the money, see, this is the other thing.

He lies about a lot. That's why I'm here. Or I wouldn't even be here to tell the story. I'm just being honest because I don't need to tell this story and give it away for free. And all due respect. So when I blew the money, I finally realized he's going to be pissed. He's going to, like whoever that I would lose this kind of money is going to be pissed. What am I going to do?

You're out of all the money. The money's gone, right? Now, I... Because he claims in the documentary there was a $700,000 that you didn't lose. No, no, no, no. He had $700,000 that he was trying to give me more. Now, here's the credit. Let me just tell you, I'll bring that in.

So I blow to $2.5 million. And I'm thinking, what am I going to do? What am I going to tell this guy? He's ringing my phone. phone. He had given me a phone to use because it's Australia. Here, use his phone. I'll call you. Okay. He's calling me, I'm not answering.

So I'm like, what the fuck am I going to do? So I'm with Rick Levinful. Like, I go, dude, I just blew this guy's two and a half fucking million. I don't know. Something's not right. And he's like, well, dude, I want to fucking gamble. Like, so I had to give him, like, I'd give him 20,000. He blew through that. All he cared about was money. I said, dude, get it off your credit

cards. I'll give it to you later. So, finally, I think, let me see if I can get the discount, right? Let me see if I can get the discount. You just blew two and a half, dude. So I called a guy, but I had nothing set up with a discount like I did with Paris. Right. I didn't have the discount and you have to have it set up before they give it to you.

You can't just say, oh, I want the discount. No, no. You got to talk about it. Usually they put it in an email. You have to have it in writing. So I call the guy that I know for many years And I say, hey, I just blew two and a half million I want my discount because did you have it set up?

I go, no, but come on, it's two and a half million. Give me 500,000. And he goes, but you don't have it set up. I said, I know, but you're my friend, dude. Two million 500,000 like just give me 500,000. I can't do that. Let me see. me call, and he's making calls.

This guy that runs the place. So he gets back to me and he goes, I think he gave me $250,000 and said, look, I'll give you 10%. I go, come on. And I'm fighting with him like I fought, but the guy that wanted I'm supposed to get 100. He wanted to give me 50. He wound up giving me 80.

So this guy gave me 250. So I'm like, all right. Now, mind you, Owen doesn't even know I blew the money. He's calling me and calling me and I'm not answering the phone. So I had, I guess what you would call buyer's remorse. Like, I blew this money. He's going to be pissed. I don't know if it's like a nefarious thing or not.

The guy did give me $2.5 million. Let me try to win it back. And I sat at the table with the $250. And I said to myself before I sat down, okay, if I can get this to $500, if I could double this, I got a shot. It went in it back because I've been there before. Okay. So I get the discount.

again, they gave me the check saying, okay, you're leaving, right? Yeah, I'm leaving. Because they knew what happened to me at Paris. They all knew the story. Everybody knew the story. Nobody would ever give me the discount. Let me play it. So he gives me the money.

You're leaving, right? Yeah, I'm going to catch a flight tomorrow. Okay. I waited until everybody went to bed. I got it at $2.50, sat at the table, started playing. I think I got it up to $5.50. I got a shot now, getting this money back. I'm thinking of myself.

Then I'm walking out. And I'm not answering his phone because I want to get the money back. Just like I did it, it's seizures. When I, when the first time he gave me the money, I wanted to win it back again. I'm thinking I can win it back because I already did it the last time. So I got it to $5.50 and I'm sitting,

I'm walking through, I think it was the second floor where the restaurants are. And I was coming out of the gaming room. And he and this mixed martial arts guy were sitting there. And they're dressed at a nine, you know, sitting there. and they seem to like, come here. I'm like, fuck, what am I going to tell these guys? So I sit down, hey, what's up?

You're not answering your phone? What's going on? Like, whatever story he told, it did not happen that way. Like, he came there and I said, dude, I had a bad run. Because what do you mean? I said, I blew the hole to an end. Like, they didn't believe me. So the guy, Sean Carolyn, he told me he was a different name, too.

he said, all right, Mike, I want to see documentation that you blew the money. I said, well, what do you want me to do? You thought you had 550? What the fuck's happening? I didn't want to give him the 550. I wanted to try to win that money back. I told him I blew the $2.5 million, which I did. I didn't want to tell them about the $5.50, the $250 that I got to turn into $5.50.

So I said, I got a little bit of money on the table. That's it. I didn't tell them the amount. So I want documentation that you blew that $2.5 million. So I went in to the high limit pit and told the guy, hey, do me a favorite. Do my, do my, it's called a win-loss statement. Give me my win-loss statement for the lit for my 2.5.

So he does. He gives me and says, you know, how long I was there and that I blew two and a half million. I come back, I sit down. And everything, they're not threatening me, they're not. And I go like this to the guy that's got scars all over his face, right? The mixed martial arts guy's name is Sean Carolyn. And I sit down and I hand in the paper. And he grabs it out of my hand.

Now, on the paper has my name, my Social Security number, all that shit. So I went, grabbed it back. And he looks at me and goes, you, and he grabbed it back. You ever fucking grabbed this fucking paper from me? I'll fucking slit your fucking throat, mate. And I'll slit your fucking wife's throat. Now I'm like, okay. I said, okay, now you're going to fucking tell me that?

You're going to fucking threaten me, motherfucker? I said, there's 2,000 fucking cameras here, you dumb motherfucker, you're going to threaten me. He goes, mate, why don't you look up? Why don't you look up and see what cameras are on us right now? And I look up, right? And I'm looking. There's no fucking cameras. He goes, and there's no fucking cameras in this restaurant.

He goes, why do you think we pick this place? I'm like, oh, fuck, there's no fucking cameras, right? They don't even know that I'm here, meaning like if something has. happen. So first thing I'm thinking, what do I do? Okay, I'm going to order something. Like, let's get something to eat, right? Go, don't threaten me again. I get a bottle. I said, want champagne or I forget if there was wine or champagne, so I got a bottle. And I'm thinking, I'm going to get this bottle. I'm going to charge it to my room. They're going to know that I was here if they tried to fucking kidnap me or whatever. And I charge it to the room. And I'm thinking, I'm going to hit,

who do I hit first with the bottle? And then, and the other person's going to get the glass in her face. That's what I'm thinking. Okay, I got to probably hit the, I got to hit the guy, the mixed martial arts guy, hit him over the head with the bottle, and then stab Junior Duluca in the face with the bottle. So that's what I'm thinking. So they go just like this.

Okay, mate, you're going to work for us now. This is what he says. We're going to give you more money. I'm thinking to myself, these fucking, I just blew two and a half million. They're going to give me more money. These dumb motherfuckers, we're going to give you more money.

mate. You're going to meet us. Give us your passport right now. I said my passport's back at the four seasons. Okay. We're going to meet you to four seasons. We're going to give you an out. We're going to give you more money. We're going to take the money. You're going to spend a weekend with us. He said, Sean Carroll says, you're going to spend a weekend with me, mate. We're going to get to know each other. And you're going to take the rest of the money I'm going to give you and you're going to take it. You're going to deposit in a casino and get a check and bring it back to me and you're going to meet me in America and you're going to cash the check. So I'm thinking, okay, all right.

Because again, they're telling me, he's telling me, we got everybody watching you, we know what you did, we know this, we know that. Okay. Is that what you want to do? Yeah, I want your past, since back in the four seasons. You got an hour to give it to me. I said, well, we got a problem. I got a reporter from Fox News.

He's gambling somewhere. I got to find him. What's he doing here? I said, he's a friend. He's doing, he's. came here to join me. Well, you got an hour. I said, I need three.

Okay. So now I'm thinking, this, this is what I thought that it was never. It's fucking bad money because now they're fucking threatening me. They've already threatened to slip, slit my throat, slit my wife's throat. And in fact, the first time he admitted it was on a podcast where Vlad TV said, I think it was flat TV, somebody said, wait a minute, your guy threatened to slit his throat and you could see, oh, and he didn't know whether

to, like to admit to it. And he decided to it, yeah, yeah, yeah. If he didn't pay his to money, yeah, yeah. So I said, I need three hours. My instructions by them were, go back to your suite, get all your shit, you're going to move into this hotel room with the mixed martial arts guy.

They're going to give me more money. I'm going to go back to the casino deposit it and get a check for them and bring it out of the country. Assuming you didn't lose it all. Well, no, they just wanted to give me to check. They said they don't know how it worked. Give you this cash. Just go and deposit it and say you don't feel it.

I want to check. It doesn't work like that, right? Which you just explained. Right. Right. So they give it, they give me, they want to give me more money. I didn't know how much. I didn't know if it was a million, two million, 200,000, whatever.

So now I got 550 that they don't know about. So I'm trying to call. I said, I need three hours. Okay. You better be at your room in three hours. We're going to call you. If not, we're going to fucking come for you. And don't try to leave this country.

We got people everywhere. We're watching you. We're going to fucking hurt your wife. We know where she's at. They told me my address. So clearly they knew. And I went back to the room fucking, now I can't get in touch with her because we had FaceTime at the time on my iPad.

It wasn't working properly. So I was thinking, fuck what I? Then I left the message said, if anything happens, I'm at the fit Sydney for, I'm trying to tell her in case something happens where I was, what I was with, here's what happened,

here's the people's names. So I go back to the room and I'm calling Rick Leventthal. He's not answered. I'm calling, I'm calling, he's not answered. I go,

finally he answers. I said, dude, get to the fucking Sydney four seasons. Check out of your room over at the star because I had a suite at the star and a suite at the four seasons and so did he. So he goes,

why? What's up? I go, dude, you're fucking gambling. I told you I needed you for a reason. These fucking guys, do you understand this guy's fucking threatening my life, threatened my wife's life?

I need you here. Just get here. I'll tell you later. So he finally comes. He calls me from the car and says, I'm in a white limousine. Now, I know this sounds crazy, but in Australia,

they don't really have limousines. They're like sobs or pujoues. They don't have like Lincoln Town cars. So I'm like, dude, you're in a link. Like get out of the fucking car. They must know who you are. Get out of the car, take a taxi.

He took a taxi. It's back to the room. I go, we got to get out of here. So I pack up all my shit. There's no way I'm giving him my passport. There's no way I'm going to the room that he wants me. So the call comes. I tell Rick, go pack your shit, we're leaving.

The call comes from Sean Carolyn. All right, mate. Here's the hotel room. I'm at the Hilton. I forget the room number. Meet me here. I said, okay. I said, I need a little time. He goes, okay. So, Rick is getting his shit. And now I'm thinking, if they're, if they're on me, they're going to follow me to this Hilton. So I got to call Jr. DeLuca and tell him, hey, something happened. So I called him up and said, hey, I got a tail. I got a tail. Tell your guy, I'm going to be a little late. I got a tail. So I wanted to back him off in case. he was watching me. I think he was. I don't know. Probably was. So we get in the taxi and we leave

Australia. We try to leave Australia. But before we left, I called security. I didn't call the cops. I called security at the Hilton. And I said, thinking, what should I say? There's a man with a gun in room, whatever the room they gave me. And that was it. That's all I did. But before I did that, I called the Sydney Star Casino and asked for my guy that I knew. He wasn't there. I asked for security. I said there were two guys that threatened my life. Here's what happened.

Here's when it was. We went to this restaurant. Get the footage. I need pictures of them. Please send me to pictures by email. They were working on that. Right. Okay.

So we got to move through this here. This is super inside. And if you haven't seen the documentary, you're probably bored. But the security guards showed up at Owen and his boys. They seized $700,000. $7002,000. $702,000. For that reason of $702 is because I was Robin Hood 702.

I didn't figure that out until two years later. Okay. I didn't know that. He did it for a reason. So did you take the money? You had $5.50. You cashed out? I took the $5.

No, I didn't cash out. It took a check. Okay. You took a check. And then you bone back to America. America, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And then basically from there, Owen is trying to recover that money from you or from the authorities who seized it. Well, what he did know is I took the 550 back to another casino in Vegas and I was a hand away. I had the 550 all the way up to 2.3 or 2.4. I was a hand away from winning his two and a half million back, which I would have given him back and I blew it all. I blew all the two and a half million back.

So by essence, if I would have, if I would have, I would have, in essence, I laundered the money unknowingly. So it's about intent. But if I would have did it a second time, the feds for sure would have probably had to arrest me. They would have had to charge me for something. But he doesn't even know that. I literally was a hand away from $2.5 million. And I was going to say, here, motherfucker, here's your money.

Lead me to fuck alone. You're a fucking cock sucker. But I blew the whole fucking thing. Wow. Hold on. Okay. So for people that find that hard to believe, why after him threatening to slit your wife's throat, slit your throat, kill you, you know, all this horrendous shit, why would you even consider giving them the money back? I did blow his money. I wasn't for sure that it was drug money or any kind of money. I just blew his money.

So I wanted to do the right thing and get his money back. But then after he came back to America too and started the threats and all that stuff, and then he desecrated my parents' grave and he sent threatening videos to her and to me. Then I said, okay, and this is important for me, whether your audience likes this or not, they need to hear the truth. I tried to meet with Owen. I went and hired an attorney named Blair Burke, one of the top lawyers in California. She was a criminal lawyer.

And I said, look, I told her the whole story what happened. We tried to resolve this. Then I called Owen multiple times and said, meet me. He wouldn't meet me. Then he said, okay, I'll meet you. Pick Mexico or Costa Rica. I said, okay, I'm not going to Mexico. I don't know many people there.

Costa Rica, I've been there many times. I know people there. Costa Rica will talk. He said, I don't trust you. I think you're working with the feds. Now, at the time, I wasn't. Right. I wasn't.

Just on some other cases. Yeah, but I wasn't. I wasn't working. I wasn't calling them yet, right? Yeah. So I went to Costa Rica and he said, don't, don't check into a hotel. I have my guy pick you up at the airport. So I'm thinking, no, fuck that.

I got to have a paper trail. I check into the J.W. Marriott in San Jose. And then I said, okay, I'm here. He said, go buy a phone because you need a phone. phone. I bought a phone. And then I said, okay, where are we going to meet? And he and I were supposed to meet in person to work this out. And did he know you had almost won the money back? I never told him. Okay. I was going to work with him and say, okay, let's work this out. When I got there at the meeting place, there was a little Colombian guy there. His name was Jefferson. Jefferson worked for macho

sports. He was the enforcer for macho sports. You know about macho sports. You know about macho sports. So he's a little Colombian guy And I said, where's, where's junior? Oh, no, he's at his house. So he had bought a house and we did a house in Costa Rica. It was beautiful, supposedly. I checked online later and found out about this house. We got girls there for you.

I said, no, I don't need any girls. I'm married, man. I'm cool. No, no, no, he's going to meet you. So I kept looking at Jefferson and he had these beige pants on and they were shorts. And they were light beige. and I kept trying to look around him

like I kept trying to look at his back and his front and he's, I'm calling Junior now. So he's pretending, I don't know if he was pretending or talking. Oh, he's at the house. We got girls for him. We got girls for me. And then all of a sudden, when he turned around, I see his silhouette of a gun,

what it appears to be a gun in his back pocket. So I'm thinking, this motherfucker's going to fucking try to kill me. I'm in Costa Rica. But I had a driver that I brought that I knew and he had his car and I told him. to back it in, something goes wrong, just come, let's get out of here, blah, blah, blah. So he's waiting for me. But I got to know if it's a gun.

Is he being for real? Is he going to bring him to meet Owen? I grab him to hug him. Come here, let me hug you. And I hug him. And then I feel the gun. And I go, motherfucker, you bought a gun here? And I start to walk away.

And now he calls his people. They tried to put me in a car in a van or something. My guy came first. I got ahead. I got in. I left. Called the embassy. I was afraid they were going to have people at the embassy at the airport.

I got out of the out of Costa Rican like two or three days and I called him up. I go, you fucking have a, and the Colombian guy, what are you afraid of? Dude, I was just going to bring you. I said, you're a lion motherfucker. You got a gun. You bring a gun to a meeting with me. So they kept trying to get me to meet with him. So the reason why I'm saying this is important.

I tried to work it out with all. But he would never meet with me. He just sent thugs to my way. Then I said, when he just, desecrated my parents graham like that's it i'm going to put all these motherfuckers in jail and that's what i called the feds and i was it okay wow yeah that is diametrically the opposite of everything that he contends when he says he was going to give me 25 percent you know what 25 percent of 2 and a half million is uh of 2 and a half million uh 625 625 yeah like i would have to think twice about that

625 to just take the money and play a little? No, I had a bad feeling. I brought Rick Leventthal to write his story about it. By the way, Rick never wrote a story about it, and he just interviewed him on his podcast. I wonder if he told him the real story that he was there. And by the way, all Rick Levinthall, I might as well put this out there.

All he cared about was gambling, and he wanted to see the best hooker places, and I took him to both. Anyway. So then why did none of this make it in the documentary? Because they... It doesn't fit the narrative? No, I'm going to tell you why.

And this is important. And humor me because I got to tell the story. That's why I decided to meet with you. There was a guy named Charles D'Agostino that taught Owen how to play volleyball and football. He was a friend of his father's. Real nice guy. When the indictment hit, I had found out about this guy, Charles D'Agostino. And I would call him and say, listen, talk to the feds, talk to the reporters.

You've got to separate yourself. If you're innocent, he was the guy. he was taking money from Owen and building homes with developing real estate with him. So I said, let me introduce you to the agents. Tell your story. Get out of this, dude. If you're a good guy, like, do it. For months, he wouldn't do it.

So one day when he was supposed to plea, guilty or not guilty, a weekend, he never showed up home. I had a bad feeling. I went to his house. He wound up killing himself. Right. Hung himself. So these producers and director of the documentary, I forget their names now, Jody and somebody else, they met with me two and a half three years ago.

And I said, I won't do this documentary without an executive producer credit and fee. I refused. And then I told him some stuff about Mark Wahlberg that I know, some really nefarious stuff that he did. And I said, you should really do the documentary about your boss. So they said, when I tell him the story, they were very surprised what I was about to tell them, but they said, okay, is there any way you'll do it? I said, no chance. So for two and a half plus years, they tried.

And then one day they call me and said, hey, Owen's talking about Charles Dagestino. I said, what's he saying? Well, that he was part of the drug ring. I said, well, that's not true. Not that I know. He says, well, that's what he's saying. You want to be interviewed and say something different? That's how they lured me in.

So I said, okay, write me a check. I'll give it to the widow and I'll do it. But don't ask me anything else. Ask me only Charles Dagostino. So I sat there in a room at William Morris Endeavor in this little freaking like office with a green screen and a little window. I'm like, you couldn't find a better place to interview me. And we did the interview and every other question was something else. I said, I told you, I'm only here to talk about Charles Dagestino.

then when I thought the cameras were off and the mic was off, we were bantering like we were in the beginning, just like that. That's what they used. They let him lie about me. They know it. They told me he's lied about a lot of stuff. I said, well, why don't you set the record straight? He goes, well, you can do that if you want.

I said, no, I'm not going to make your documentary. I'll do the thing about Charles, but I'm not sitting for anything else. So they knew he was lying. They knew I didn't get a percentage. they knew everything he said was a lie. The person that introduced us was not a friend. It was his freaking wife, Christopher Larday, my former girl that I dated.

So everything he said was a lie, and they used that just to get me to sit down. Because if you watch it, like you said, you did, would they have had a documentary if they didn't get that hour of me sitting there where I didn't even know I was being recorded to talk about little things that they used snippet here, snippet there?

It made the second episode, right? Right. Right. So that's why, and I'm just letting everybody know, I am going to be suing Mr. Mark Wahlberg and Amazon and everybody involved. And Mr. Owen Hansen, guess what? Your fucking little protein fucking ice creams, I'm going to be suing you too, dude. I can't let fucking people fucking lie about me.

And just to let you know real fast, I'm almost done. In the next two days, there's going to be a civil RICO case. I'm filing with the biggest casino in North America. Resorts World and all the executives involved that put me in jail because I knew too much about all the dirty shit that was happening, including the bookies, Matt Boyer and the other guys that were gambling there. And Matt Boyer took over Owen Hanson's book when I put Owen Hanson in jail and Owen Hanson told me that personally on a phone. So this whole thing is a triangle. Me and Owen Hansen, me and Matt Boyer, it's like this. And all I'm saying is Owen, Mark Wahlberg,

Ari Emanuel, all the people that were part of this doc, I'm coming for you, motherfuckers. And I got the best lawyers. I got former AUSAs. Watch the fuck out. When you see in two days, when the suit hits, I'm coming for you motherfuckers next. If you think you could fucking talk shit about me and say lies,

and even a guy like you, it's a smart guy believes it because, wait a minute, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. It's all bullshit. There was no 25%. There was no nothing. I did it because of Christopher Valardi saying he's a businessman with a lot of money.

He wants to get involved in helping people. That's it. Here at the end. Yeah, they wanted to just, they wanted to make a clean doc. They wanted to make the documentary, the story feel like it was a TV show. And that, I guess, didn't fit the narrative. I mean, look, I think they could have fit that in there. I think you should have come out and insisted on telling the whole story about how you actually bet with him twice and how you made the money back.

I would have spoken about that. But I wanted to get paid for it. I wasn't going to give them the goods for free because I'm working on a docu-series, a scripted series myself. Why should I sit there? Because as you know, when you sit for anybody's documentary,

podcast, whatever, guess what? It's public domain. They've already used a podcast that I did. If you watched the thing, heroes behind the headlines. They used that and they didn't have anything else. When they were trying to get me for free,

they tried to call photographers that photographed me. I told the photographers, they called me to said they want to pay for the photographs they said fuck them tell them no they all told them no they owen just so you know bro without fucking me you didn't have nothing dude because you had no documentary i had to sit i was the guy that put you to fuck away and by the way owen you didn't mention god in one fucking instance you didn't mention god got me out of this nothing you just said you went and got botox when you got out of jail who the fuck gets said you don't fuck gets Botox when you get the fuck out of jail. Dude, you're fucking out of jail after nine,

10 years. And by the way, I got proof that all that stuff about the riot. He was in Lompoc medium. The riot happened at the low, dude. That's bullshit. Before we get out of here, can you go into a little bit of detail about what you gave to the feds? Like when you did say, fuck it, I'm going to the FBI. And when they started building the case, I want to hear about that. Okay. I'm glad you brought that up. So Owen made a drastic, he made two drastic mistakes. He made a host of them. Well, no, I'm talking about it with me. I remember getting up for his victim impact statement where the feds didn't want me to talk in court. Yeah, no shit. It's all day. So anyway, so I said, look, I don't want to drive to San Diego. I want you to

set it up in a federal courthouse in L.A. And they did. They put a camera up and I, and I spoke there, said, Owen, this is at the end, because I knew the judge would cut me off. I said, Owen, if you didn't desecrate my parents' grave, you would still be selling your fucking drugs, you stupid motherfucker. And the judge, sir, don't, and they cut me off. But I'll tell you what happened. He desecrated the grade. That was number one. But the biggest mistake he made, he called me from his regular phone that said Owen Hansen. I was smart enough to write the number down. I had somebody trace it. It came up Owen Hansen. I found out it was his real name.

Now, as a gamble, like I told you, I meet billionaires, sports stars, singing stars, the Dregs of Society, a guy that knows me very well, who was in jail with Owen Hansen, who told me all of those stories was bullshit about his being in jail. He was in jail with pedophiles

because he ratted on everybody. Owen, we know you didn't get nine years when you were supposed to serve 46 years because you ratted on a fucking lawyer. Dude, do you really think we believe that that lawyer, they gave you fucking nine years instead of 46 years, 21 years and 25 years to life in Australia? Come on, tell all your boys that. But you were a fucking rat, dude. We know.

And when you went to Australia, there was COVID. I could tell you the whole story, but he doesn't have the time. Anyway. So you think he gave up people. He gave up everybody. He gave up Phantoms, Secure, Vincent Ramos. Everybody, dude. Right, right.

He gave up everybody. He served nine years from 46. six fucking years. And he was in Australia and he told everybody in jail, I have a murder bid. That's what he said. This guy's been lying his whole fucking life. You heard the documentary.

He's lied his whole life. You think he stopped now? He saw God. I'm not going to lie anymore. He was never at the riot. He was in the medium, not the low. The low is where the riot was at Lampoc.

Okay? They only call it Lompoc for some reason that my friend told me that was in with him. It was all bullshit. And all I could tell you is, Owen, I wish you would tell the truth. I wouldn't be here now.

So you got his phone number. Oh, I got his phone number. Thank you. I got his phone number. And this guy that was in with him, he goes, give me the number. I go, what? Give me the number. He went to T-Mobile.

Owen, it was T-Mobile, right? He went to T-Mobile and he was banging one of the girls at T-Mobile. I didn't tell him to do this. And he got, he said, shut off this phone and give me the SIM card. shut off the phone, gave my guy the SIM card. I had all of his contacts, Texas, everything. I started calling everybody, and that's when I figured out he was a drug dealer because he would have the person's name, and they would have the drugs that they either sold or took or bought or whatever.

I pieced it all together, called the feds, and told him about it. If he never called me from that fucking phone, we wouldn't be here right now. And when I went to the feds, they said, how did you get this information? and I said, well, they said, was it legal? I said, I don't think so. So they said, okay, we don't want it. We'll get it the real way. But if he never called me from that fucking phone, the real phone, I had his name.

I had every fucking thing. Owen Hanson. So Owen, you fucked up, buddy. Then how did you, that's pretty wild. How did you then, if they couldn't use that, that illegally gotten info? They got it themselves. Okay. Did you have to do anything else while they were building their case?

Then, then, oh, by the way, Owen, when you... Hang on, hang on, just please, please. Stay focused and answer my fucking question. I love you. Did you have to do anything else? Did you have to do anything else for them in the course of their investigation? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. We love to hear that. Okay. There was a point where Christopher Valarde, I had to meet with her. And she met me at a place on South Beverly Drive called the Earth Cafe. She brought a couple of people with her. people that I knew because I was dating Christopher months. I met these people.

I flew her in jets and spoiled her. And I'll never forget the feds checked me because they checked that I, they said, you know, we know we've shot somebody. I go, yeah, you only know about one person. Right. So before the meeting, they patted me down and made sure I didn't have any weapons. I said, you're going to pat me down. They're like, come on, we got it.

And it was so funny because they had people out front, people in the cafe, people everywhere, because, as you know, if one of the sources for the feds gets hurt in any way, it's a nightmare for now. So they had probably a dozen or more agents. So I'm sitting, they let me pick where I wanted to sit. So I sat out front. They said, sit out front outside, don't sit inside so we could keep an eye on you. So I sit out front and I'm waiting for Krista and I'm waiting for Krista.

And all of a sudden, I'm a Philly fan. Terrell Owens is walking across the student. of South Beverly Drive. And I see him. And before he gets to my table, I stand up and I go, Terell! And he comes over and I hug him and I grab him.

Well, what I did know is, they thought that Tirel was trying to hurt me. So somebody hates him for like grabbing their guns. Anyway, I finally see Krista. They recorded the whole thing. What's the meeting about? They wanted to see if Krista was involved. Oh, I see.

Okay. And she was. Yeah. Krista was dating cartel members since she's 18 years old. Right. She's from Sino-Loa. She lives in Guadalaj. And I could tell you the names of the guy that was the father of her kids.

And I'm going to tell you how vicious she was. When her husband, that she calls her husband, his name is Frank Henry Hughes, they had two kids together. She told me she had a husband, but he was killed in a car accident. Well, he wasn't killed in a car accident. What happened was he was a huge drug dealer. he had multiple private jets that was flying drugs around and El Chapo became very jealous

and he wanted to be in business with him. So he told him, I'll be in business with you. And Frank Henry Hughes, his name was Pancho. He was American, but everybody thought he was Mexican because he spoke fluent Spanish. And he said, they said, Poncho, let's go in business together. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no.

So Pancho had a partner. His name is El Nino. And El Nino was a, you know, a guy that wanted to, you know, go up the heights of the ladder. And El Chapa went to him and said, okay, we're going to kill this guy, your best friend. And if you don't kill him, we're going to kill your family. You're going to watch us kill your family. I'm going to kill you. So one day driving, El Nino's sitting in the back.

Frank Henry Hughes, Pancho is sitting in the front. And he blew his fucking brains out. He did die in a car. Wow. Accident, but it was an accident. It was this while Krista was married to him? Yeah. Wow.

So she leaves, she leaves Mexico. Doesn't know what to do because he had all the money. He sent her to America to blend in, gave her all this money and told her, be around stars, be around athletes, they'll never question your money. She never worked. She just lived the life. So when that happened, she didn't know what to do. When I met her, she said, I have this guy that owes me millions of dollars. And I said, I'll get it for you.

Who is it? No, no, don't do that. No, he'll kill my kids. No, she said, her hurt, her hurt my kids. So I kept trying to, what I found out years later, her, years before, rather, her, or years around, I forget the time, her sister was getting married. she asked if I could take her sister and and take her to Vegas for the wedding, which I did. I flew all of her.

This is when around the time I did the leaving her on the on the tarmac, the reverse cause of block. I met her sister's soon to be husband. Her soon to be husband was a DEA and FBI informant. he put 64 people, cartel people in jail. Didn't know it. Wow. I didn't know it.

When I tried to take the picture of the wedding, he went with me to the store to go get the pictures at the time, you know, when you would go to get the pictures. And he took every picture of him out of it. I went, what the fuck's going on? Years later, when it was in Rolling Stone, the whole story about this whole thing, he called me on the phone.

I got to talk to you. He told me the whole story. Crystal Valardi met Frank Henry Hughes while she was dating this other. Ariano Felix drug guy that was in jail and Frank Henry Hughes started sending her like all these presents and she dated had two two kids with him found out when he was murdered that he had a whole another life with another girl and kids so yeah both the girls that were had kids with this guy Frank Henry Hughes they both had to have sex with El Nino to get their money every month to

live on for years. Yeah. Because he took all their money. So I understand. Of course, she's all mixed up in this. And of course, she meets Owen Hanson. Right. Right. Right. And he doesn't know this. And the crazy part is he, she called me one day afterwards and said, yeah, I'm dating him. And he got really rough with me physically. And then I told him, I said, dude, why are you getting rough with

why are you getting rough with Christ? Christi goes, what she said? Because she's connected. You know, she's connected. So it's a lot of stuff that he didn't say. And again, why? Why didn't I say it? They didn't want to pay me. They didn't want to give me credit. I'm not giving them the goods. So last question. Yeah.

Who was he working for in Mexico? Okay. He refuses to tell me. I don't believe that shit. Okay. I don't believe this fucking cartel guy thing. Look, I can't get into it, but I called some people involved in this case recently.

That's all bullshit, this fucking guy. And he's with this character. I mean, when he's, It's the little details. They had a bulletproof car and he rolled the window down. Is there a fucking car that has bulletproof thick glass and their windows rolled down? I don't know. They're too heavy to roll down, dude.

They're too heavy. Nobody has bulletproof glass where you're going to roll it the fuck down. You want it up so you can never roll it down if you're going to get assassinated. All I'm saying is. So I don't believe, look, if you tell all the stuff about Crock, the lawyer and this one and that one, you're telling little bits and pieces. Okay. So you don't know exactly who he was working for, whether it was one of Choppos kids. I can tell you this. I can tell you this for sure.

Christo Valarde was with the cartel since she's 18 years old. Okay. Crystal Valarde had the capability of getting drugs out. Why did he protect her? Why? Why did he never mention her name? When he said, first it's his girlfriend, then it's a friend, then he's telling another pot. He forgets what he says.

Then he tells another podcast. You know what? my wife and kids and my step kids now he has kids now what kids does he have so he's never telling the truth so i don't believe nothing he says all i could tell you is for sure christop valarde was like this with multiple high-level cartel members from the center of the cartel got it uh that's pretty obvious but you don't know exactly i'm just curious who he was exactly who he was working for in the cartel Wow, what an odyssey, dude. One other thing.

Yeah, sure, sure. One other thing. My God. Somebody asked him, he said he had $20 million. And I think it was Vlad TV, said, well, why don't you pay off the thing? And he went, well, because I had real estate. He goes, well, why don't you just sell the real estate? I'm not going to sell my real estate.

So he catches him in lies. Owen said, I'm not going to sell my $20 million worth of real estate to pay off the $4 million. It's just nothing adds up. Owen, nothing adds up, dude. Nothing fucking adds up, dude. Tell the fucking truth. I think both of what you guys are saying seem very fanciful. Yeah.

Like, retarded. I agree. Like, why didn't, there's so many times where Owen could have just gotten out, there's so many times when you could have just left, gone to the feds early. Yeah. Like, why did you need to go re-gamble and try to get his money back? Like, you didn't, you must have known the guy was no good from the beginning.

No, I didn't. Not at all. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. He was introduced by Christopher Valarde. And I didn't know she was a drug dealer until after he was put in jail. That aside, though, $5 million in a dumpy little apartment. If you were getting $5 million from a guy in a fucking mansion who, you know, owns different companies, sure, they've got cash.

But nobody in a small little apartment. That's a stash house, dude. And you're from Philly. You grew up around the mob. But you know, you couldn't. He's dressed apart. He's dressed very expensive taste of clothes. And he's introduced to me by Christopher Valardi, who's living large. She's literally living with diamond this, diamond that, like the best of everything. I'm thinking, okay, it's a businessman. I don't know. That's why I brought

Rick Levinthold the second time. I had a bad feeling. Well, RJ, I really appreciate it, man. It was an odyssey. You're still gambling? That's how you make your money? Still gamble. I'll be there. I'll be in Vegas a couple days. Wow. You want to come? You want to come? I can't. I'm back in.

I got stuff to do in Texas. But I will come. If you bring me out there. Shout out to Brian Call and Brian. How are you doing, buddy? Brian, I'm going to open. Hey, can I open for you? For sure.

All right. You got it, man. Thank you guys. All right, RJ. Appreciate it, buddy. Thank you. Thank you.