‘Degenerate’ gambler Dana White reveals the fight he lost $1 million on
Self-confessed “degenerate” gambler Dana White discusses the biggest amount he lost on a bet.
When he’s not busy running an empire that is the UFC, you’ll probably catch Dana White at one of the many Las Vegas casinos. It is, in fact, where Colby Covington found the UFC president when he decided to air out his grievances about a title shot snub in March 2019.
White’s been vocal about his gambling habits for years now. His massive winnings have gotten him banned from casinos, The Palms being one of them.
The flip side, of course, is the losses that sting for a long time. In White’s case, it was when he ended up squandering $1 million on former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor against Kelly Pavlik in 2007.
Taylor entered the bout as the 8-5 favorite but lost via seventh-round TKO.
“I bet a million dollars on Taylor and he got destroyed,” White told the Daily Wager’s Doug Kezirian. “And that was the first time I’d ever bet a million dollars ‘cause I was so confident that Taylor was gonna win that fight.”
As you’ve seen in the clip above, White treats gambling as his “part-time job.” You can say his love for it almost rivals his passion for the fight business.
“I play table games too much. I’m a degenerate if you’re not getting the vibe,” he said. “I’m a degenerate, yes. I love to gamble.”
Longtime UFC analyst Joe Rogan actually has a theory on White’s gambling addiction, which he shared with fellow comedians Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher in 2017.
Dana’s been hit in the head a lot. Notoriously impulsive, notoriously susceptible to addiction, whether it’s gambling addiction, alcohol addiction, it’s a big part of CTE. That’s brain damage, from getting hit in the head.
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He did a lot of boxing when he was young, had his dome rattled a number of times.
Multiple sites claim that White’s current net worth stands at $500 million.