“Michael Jordan wanted in on $1 blackjack bets to have teammates’ ‘money in his pocket’”: Why Bulls legend insisted on gambling with guys like Will Perdue and John Paxson

Michael Jordan didn’t just gamble with thousands of dollars as he did so with a couple dollars as well with his less affluent Bulls teammates. 

Michael Jordan being perhaps the most competitive player in the history of the NBA is most definitely the reason as to why he loved to gamble as much as he did. Gambling makes you feel as though the best hand of the entire game is just around the corner, keeping you in that game much longer than you actually should’ve been. 

Combine the euphoric feeling of getting a good hand with your innate competitiveness and you’ve got yourself a gambling addict. Michael Jordan didn’t just put money on card games however. He would be in debt for millions of dollars for golf games and would also lose a couple dollars in a coin-tossing game.

A $200,000 gambling marker for Michael Jordan to gamble at the Bellagio in Vegas in 1998 sold tonight for $7,500 at @HeritageAuction pic.twitter.com/dqLJOyx5Hk

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 8, 2021

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Those are just two examples of several more activities Jordan bet on. They were used to showcase that he would quite nearly put money on the line for any and everything. 

Of course, just because he gambled away money in a variety of endeavors doesn’t mean that he didn’t go hard when it came to cards. 

Michael Jordan wanted to gamble with $1 just to have his teammates’ money. 

It’s a well-known fact that the Chicago Bulls flight throughout the 1990s, like many team planes during this era, were borderline casinos. Guys would put thousands and thousands of dollars in the pot and gamble with similar amounts of cash in hand. 

Michael Jordan, along with the elder statesmen on the Bulls who made more money than the rest of the team, would gamble with that kind of cash in the back of the plane. The front of the plane however, was reserved for role players like John Paxson and Will Perdue who weren’t exactly making $30 million a year.

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This is where Jordan’s hyper-competitiveness kicked in. Despite playing cards for exorbitant amounts of money with guys who were actually willing to pay up, he wanted to go to the front of the plane. 

MJ wanted to play cards with the ‘$1 guys’. Paxson and the rest were confused as to why he wanted to do so. When asked about it, Michael Jordan said, “So I can say I have your money in my pocket.”