Mo money, mo reasons to stake it! 5 Hip-Hop Stars Who Like A Flutter
Here’s a look at some of the biggest celebrity gamblers in Hip-Hop. These major players are rappers who gamble.
Jay – Z
With more than 100 million records shipped to his name, Jay Z, otherwise known as Shawn Carter, is one of the genre’s leading artists of all time. A commercial titan, Mr Beyoncé has amassed a personal fortune estimated at over $500 million. This fine figure has been made up of many parts, much of it away from his recording and performing career. Mr Z also happens to be a successful business man too. Check it, the guy founded Def Jam Records, Roc Nation, Rocawear clothing line and is a certified baseball and basketball sports agent to boot. Add this to his wife’s rather healthy income and you begin to understand why he has just so much disposable income. Disposable income that he likes to use at the casino tables in London and Las Vegas. At said tables, high stakes naturally, the recording star is often said to wager enormous amounts and, to date, his biggest loss came when he lost $500,000 in a single high-stakes poker hand in Las Vegas.
Young Thug
Atalanta’s own Young Thug, better known as Jeffery Lamar Williams, has been on the scene for a few years now having made his breakout in 2014. Thugga quickly established himself as a star in the making by way of a unique sound and broken beat that disrupts the traditional Hip-Hop flows. He wins prizes too for the freshest approach to album titles with the name he chose to give to his, as yet unreleased album, Hy!£UN35. Young Thug has confessed to having two identities with which he follows his different passions. Thug, he insists, is where the music is at but Lil Jeff is a gambler through and through. “There are two Thugs,” he said. “One a rapper and one a gambler. This ain’t Thug, it’s Lil Jeff. I think he like shooting dice more than rapping”.
Birdman
Another Hip-Hop star who likes to gamble is Birdman who gets his kicks from betting. The rapper is well known to throw his money at sportsbooks whenever he gets the chance, which thanks to mobile betting apps is just about whenever he likes (State law notwithstanding). In 2011, he lost over $2 million on the Miami Heat, wrongly betting that they would win the NBA Championship over the Dallas Mavericks. On the other hand, in Super Bowl XLV, he won back half of that when he scooped $1 million for backing the Green Bay Packers. His heavy bankroll comes from being the co-founder of Cash Money Records with his brother, plus one half of Hip-Hop duo Big Tymers as well as a successful solo artist in his own right. He also later contributed to Young Money Cash Money Billionaires alongside Lil Wayne. Another one to invest his money wisely, he funds an oil and gas exploration company as well as a clothing line.
Nelly
The American rapper and actor known to the world as Nelly, but to his moms as Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr, started out with his successful solo Hip-Hop career in the year 2000. That was the year he released his smash hit debut album, Country Grammar and which also contained his first international top ten hit, “Ride Wit Me”. Since then he has had smash hit after smash hit and pulled a together the tidy decent sum of $60m to show for his hard work. Like Jay Z above, some of his record money has been reinvested into business opportunities and tasked to work for him. One of his more successful ventures is the energy drink, Pimp Juice, for example. Several things about Nelly’s appearance tell us things about him. One, he is famous for wearing a band aid on his left cheek in tribute to his brother and, two, he has a distinctive card hand tattoo that spells out his name. This is in honor of another love of his, the great game of poker. Famously, Nelly is a prolific gambler and a huge poker fan having taken part in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event and been a regular on the now departed PokerStars European Poker Tour circuit where his tells have led to a disappointing cash out of just $5,153. If, like Nelly, you are struggling to win a decent cash at poker or any other casino game, then online casinos are a good way of practising. You can play for free, risking nothing or, when you confident enough, step up and play roulette games for real money. Who knows, one day you be going heads up with Nelly himself!
50 Cent
Lastly, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is another rapper who enjoys a gamble. We know so as he once penned the following for his 2007 track, What You Got; “I got a gambling problem. I bet you **** I’mma be back bustin’. But you won’t notice me when that gat dumpin’, you wan’ bet?. I lost money when I bet on Roy. Won money when I bet on Floyd, I’m the one that bet on boy”. Over the years, Fiddy has staked far more than $0.50 and famously won a $500,000 bet on the New York Giants plus a further $1 million on boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. in one of his bouts with Oscar de le Hoya.
High roller indeed.
Honorable mention
Lil Baby is a rapper who gambles, spearheading it for the younger generation.
