Charles Barkley has a penchant for gambling and has been doing it for as long as he had sufficient money with him. Nowadays, he has reduced his desire to go on after winning some money, but he won’t let a chance go to waste. He managed to get that chance during the NBA Cup semifinals held at Las Vegas last week.
The Inside the NBA crew were part of the coverage of the Eastern Conference teams as they looked to cement a place in the finals. In last season’s inaugural In-Season Tournament, host Ernie Johnson joked about his colleague hitting the tables after the finals was over.
This time also they teased him about gambling while in Sin City. But those teases did not stop Charles Barkley from visiting the casinos and trying his hand at winning something. While on the Dan Patrick Show, host Dan Patrick asked him how much he won, to which he replied.
When Patrick asked him about the details of his hand, the Hall of Famer replied that he was playing with $25,000 per hand. On this note, Dan Patrick asked him if he could play with just $100 a hand, Barkley replied.
With that acknowledgement, Charles Barkley admitted that he will not be happy playing with just $100 in his hand. His desire to gamble goes hand in hand with his risk-taking ability to gamble with at least $25,000 per hand.
Charles Barkley has lost millions in gambling in the past
$25,000 per hand might be the limit the 61-year-old has set nowadays. However, there was a time when he gambled a lot more, to the tune of losing millions. It was known that he lost close to $25 million of his hard-earned NBA money to gambling.
He also won some money, such as his bet on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the 2002 Super Bowl. However, he has admitted that he lost more of those $1 million bets than he won. That wore heavily on him as he continued to lose money and almost went broke.
That is when he revealed that his friends stepped in. They advised him to step away from the tables once he has lost a hand or two at max or even won small amounts. They advised him to learn how to keep his money than throw it all away.
Barkley learnt from his mistakes and rolled back on his earlier high-risk methods. Now, he is enjoying gambling rather than fighting it as is evident from that lowly $25,000 bet he made while at the NBA Cup semifinals.
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