Charles Barkley loves playing basketball, loves to be on television, loves to play golf now that he is retired, and loves to keep it real 24/7, 365 days a year. But there is another thing the 11-time All-Star loves: Gambling.
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The 62-year-old icon admitted that there have been times when his enjoyment of gambling bordered on addiction. “I love gambling, but I became a total crazy person. I won a million dollars probably 10 times. I’ve lost a million dollars, probably 30 times,” he said on Pardon My Take.
That’s a lot of dough to just be slanging away on a weekend. Chuck acknowledged that he has big money and even shared a story of how it usually played out whenever he and his friends went to Vegas for a weekend.
“Every time I went to Vegas, I’d be up 300, 400, 500,000 dollars. My friends be like, ‘Dude, you [have] got to quit. We up. Let’s go. Let’s go get drunk and have some fun.’ I was like, ‘No.’ In my mind, I was like, I want to win a million because I’d done it a few times,” Chuck narrated.
“And then I just kept losing. And I lost a lot. Millions and millions and millions. And I quit for like two years,” he added. That quitting part worked out in his best interest.
Chuck may have a large net worth, but the stories of athletes gambling away everything they had are too common. Fortunately, Chuck had good friends to keep it real with him.
“I was out with my friends one night, we like to smoke cigars and drink, and I said, ‘Man, I sure miss Vegas. Miss casinos,'” recalled Barkley, confessing that he had asked his friends to be honest with him about his gambling habits, especially if he was going to break a two-year streak. One of them was unafraid to tell Chuck what he needed to hear.
“Yo man, gambling ain’t your problem. Being a f***** idiot is your problem,” Chuck recalled his unnamed friend stating. “But you want to get to the imaginary million, but then you lose that, then you lose the whole million credit line you got.”
It’s clear that whenever Barkley did get back out to Vegas, his gambling instinct tended to get alive. Earlier this year, he told Dan Patrick this about how much his gamblers’ spirit had been reignited: “Kiss my a**! I’m going to gamble. I like to do it. I’m in form right now because my whole weekend is all about gambling on Saturdays and Sundays.”
Casinos are double-edged swords. One day, you have the magic, and cannot lose. You feel like a God. The next time you go? You cannot buy yourself a card, and the only cash you end up getting from a machine is from an ATM.
Barkley knows this better than anybody. By his admission, he’s lost close to $30 million either at the Sportsbook, the tables, or on the machines. It’s a slippery slope to ride.
Lucky for him, he’s got a pretty big bankroll and some great friends to keep him company.
