Is Dana White the Most ‘Untouchable’ Whale in Vegas?

Recently, a Netflix manufacturing crew has been following Dana White round Las Vegas for a yet-to-be-announced unscripted undertaking about his wild playing exploits. He’s the best protagonist: a voluble, larger-than-life excessive curler whom its cameras have caught on at the very least one event up greater than $800,000 on the Bellagio.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship boss — and Donald Trump confidant — has turn into a people hero for his storied playing periods at Sin City casinos. His adrenalized exploits, primarily at blackjack, are a lot mentioned throughout the modern-day saloon tradition, usually dubbed the manosphere.

During one podcast look alongside White, Mike Tyson marveled at how “prolific” he’s as a wagerer and the way usually he has been banned from the home. White clarified that he’s by no means been instructed he can’t play, solely that “they won’t let me play at the limits that I want.” On his personal present, Joe Rogan, a longtime UFC colour commentator, recalled with slack-jawed awe a story of “my night watching Dana White gamble” at Red Rock, detailing how White obtained himself into, after which again out of, a $600,000 gap. “My anxiety is through the roof” simply discussing the episode, he mentioned. “I’m fucking tweaking.” White instructed a equally astonished Grant Cardone, a finance influencer, that he had “walked out of the Venetian one night with a trash bag full of money,” value thousands and thousands of {dollars}. White has spoken of profitable greater than $26 million at Caesars Palace taking part in baccarat within the first few months of 2024; “I fucked up their entire [financial] quarter,” he instructed Shannon Sharpe.

Lately, although, it’s an epic chilly streak that’s had White within the information.

Trade outlet Casino.org reported in September that the mogul, whose internet value Forbes estimated earlier this yr at greater than $600 million, owes between $25 million and $50 million to Red Rock in playing money owed. THR sources peg the unpaid sum nearer to $30 million. It’s unclear when the Red Rock debt first accrued, or the state of negotiations to resolve it; for eight-figure losses, a reduction of 20 p.c or extra is perhaps brokered to take care of loyalty with a most well-liked consumer.

“This story is pure clickbait bullshit,” White says in a press release to THR. “Everything about this story is completely untrue.” He continues, “But of course media doesn’t care about facts, they care about clicks. This is exactly why I always say you can’t believe ANYTHING you read.”

What’s notable right here isn’t solely how a lot is owed by White. Plenty of whales find yourself that deep in any given yr. It’s whom he owes. Red Rock is a part of the general public on line casino firm Red Rock Resorts, run by brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, White’s longtime buddies and enterprise companions, first within the UFC (he made them billions) and extra just lately in a slew of latest ventures. This makes White a one-of-one Vegas VIP.

White insists that Red Rock Resorts “confirmed” that the thrust of this protection is inaccurate. Yet the agency itself, which as a Nevada gaming license holder is topic to a number of the most stringent truthfulness necessities in U.S. enterprise regulation, particularly concerning public illustration of its operation, declined to reply to requests for remark from each Casino.org and THR.

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White has been clear about his outsized betting behavior, which has turn into a key a part of his maverick persona whilst he and his league turn into ever extra intertwined with different public firms — Mark Zuckerberg, a combined martial arts fan, appointed him to Meta’s board in January, whereas one of many first transactions David Ellison introduced after closing his Paramount deal over the summer season was a $7.7 billion partnership to stream UFC occasions. (The latter was seen ringside with White and Trump within the run-up to his studio acquisition.)

White has referred to himself as a “degenerate” gambler and defined, “This is like my part-time job: I work in the UFC all day and play cards at night.” Addict or mere aficionado, he loves the motion, as soon as having employed a non-public blackjack seller to run a desk for him on his yacht anchored off the Amalfi Coast. “I can’t go on vacation without playing,” he says with fun in a video marking the event that has since circulated on-line. “The sickness is real.”

White has a status in his hometown of Las Vegas — and particularly among the many prime brass at casinos — for his type of blackjack play. He’s what’s identified within the enterprise as a brief cease, turning up regularly however staying for only some high-stakes fingers per session — and strolling away if he’s forward. This units him other than a lot of the different bettors at his altitude, of which there are just a few dozen, who go to from out of city from time to time and gamble for marathon stretches. “He’s playing smart, and casinos don’t want that kind of action,” says one other excessive curler who is aware of White. Gaming executives a lot favor the latter class of consumer (comping them suites and steak home dinners to encourage their patronage) as a result of, with sufficient time at a desk, the home’s statistical edge wins out.

White defined on Sharpe’s 2024 podcast that his MO of laying only a few big-dollar fingers, usually properly into the six figures, is what has gotten him barred. “The way they ask you to leave is they drop your limit so you can’t bet that much anymore,” he defined. “[The Palms] did it, the Mirage did it to me, the Wynn is the worst. … They’re the biggest pussies on the Strip, for what a big casino that they are. Caesars Palace, the Bellagio and the Venetian are the three real casinos in town that you can play big.” He added, “They don’t sweat you, they don’t act weird when you win.”

White mentioned his on-again, off-again Palms ban with the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2012. After he received $2 million on the on line casino, officers requested him to not play there. Two years prior, White had retaliated to an earlier ban by the on line casino by pulling UFC-related occasions from the resort, which had been internet hosting fight-night playing cards at its 2,500-seat theater. That standoff lasted almost two years, by a number of administration regimes. (After this feud ended, the Fertittas owned the Palms for half a decade.)

White’s frustration over blackjack betting guidelines and bans probably spurred his latest shift to taking part in baccarat, which is understood for its far increased limits. (In July, he reportedly received $1.2 million on the Fontainebleau on the sport.) Explains one VIP handler: “Dana would play $75,000 [blackjack] hands, and it wasn’t enough. Now it’s $300,000 in bac. It’s escalating. He needs more of a rush.” A former on line casino govt agrees, explaining that the distinction between the video games is “like switching from cocaine to heroin.”

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Lorenzo Fertitta, who’s identified White since they have been classmates at a Las Vegas parochial faculty, has described the brothers’ relationship with White as “best friends,” virtually household, explaining that they converse and even see one another day by day, mixing store speak with exercises. White has been proudly public about how shut he’s with the Fertittas, specifically Lorenzo. In 2009, he instructed the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “Lorenzo is moving [homes], so now I have to think about finding a new place to live where he is,” he mentioned. “That’s how sick and twisted we are. We really are that close.” In 2024, he defined to Sports Business Journal, “We keep each other in the loop on every little aspect and detail of the business, and it’s why we work so well together,” including that the trio’s ventures are totally intertwined: “My money sits with their money.”

The Fertittas management Red Rock Resorts, a public hospitality firm whose portfolio consists of locals-focused Station Casinos, which their father based half a century in the past. The brothers, Sin City royalty, invested early in self-made White’s imaginative and prescient for professionalizing the combined martial arts world by buying UFC for $2 million in 2001. At the time, White had been a Vegas gymnasium proprietor and managed fighters like Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. Soon, to increase MMA’s nationwide publicity, they struck a cope with Spike TV to air competitors sequence The Ultimate Fighter. (It’s now broadcast on ESPN+.) Fifteen years later, the group offered UFC to Endeavor for $4 billion, with White staying on as a salaried president.

In the years after the Endeavor sale, White and the Fertittas have partnered on new ventures, together with motion sports activities firm Thrill One, youth athletics operator 3Step and, most prominently, controversial upstart Power Slap League, during which opponents take turns smacking one another with an open hand till one among them is knocked out. The Brain Injury Association of America has known as for Power Slap to be banned.

TBS aired a season of Power Slap in 2023, which was then canceled following TMZ‘s publication of a phone video in which White slaps his wife during an argument at a nightclub. He later apologized. Endeavor, whose shares fell after the footage was released, didn’t touch upon White’s actions on the time; neither did the UFC’s present broadcast accomplice, ESPN, or the Fertittas.

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The decision of on line casino money owed is usually its personal drama, whether or not in liquidating property or arriving at complicated preparations for cost. Exhibit A: In July 2014, film producer Joel Silver paid $1.7 million to the Wynn on behalf of his pal, former NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer. At the time, Silver had acquired a $4 million advance from NBCUniversal for the Liam Neeson motion movie Non-Stop. Both males denied the advance was the supply of the cost. (The company later launched an investigation.) Meyer was pressured to go away the corporate in August 2020. More just lately, Meyer was sued by an Indian on line casino in Connecticut for almost $2.8 million in unpaid debt.

White’s unpaid marker presents a quandary for Las Vegas, and significantly for the Fertittas. “With Dana, you’re talking about someone who’s untouchable,” explains the guy excessive curler. “But his gambling’s become a sore subject for these public companies — TKO [formed in 2023 through the merger of UFC and WWE], Red Rock Resorts and now Paramount.” A supply tells THR that the media firm, whose all-important streaming deliverables will now be tied to White’s decision-making, and which is engaged on a number of playing and livestreaming tasks with the UFC, mentioned his private betting with him in September. Paramount didn’t reply to a request for remark. (This week, information broke of a UFC fight-fixing scandal in Las Vegas, which prompted a number of sportsbooks together with Caesars to refund bets; White has mentioned he’s been talking with the FBI and acknowledged “it definitely doesn’t look good [for one of the fighters].”)

The VIP handler observes that White’s excellent debt is “a world-class number, just elite-level losing,” and that “if you or I owed Red Rock $100,000 and didn’t pay, the DA’s office would be involved.” Yet the Fertittas have discretion over assortment. It’s their shareholders who maintain them accountable, and within the case of Red Rock’s inventory possession, which means they’re answerable largely to themselves. “Ultimately, this is up to management to decide,” says lawyer Behnam Dayanim, whose regulatory and compliance shoppers embrace gaming companies.

Given their mutual ties and their respective riches, a debt within the tens of thousands and thousands won’t imply a lot to White or the Fertittas. However, regulators could have their very own view about guaranteeing the UFC head fulfills his obligation to pay up, particularly since they’re due their very own reduce. “A licensed [casino] company has a fiduciary duty to the state of Nevada,” says Richard Schuetz, a seasoned playing trade govt and veteran of a number of territories’ gaming commissions. “The Nevada Gaming Commission receives a percentage of revenue — 6.75 percent. It wants to protect integrity. It also expects its piece of the action.”

This story appeared within the Nov. 5 challenge of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click here to subscribe.