Report: Tycoon Loses $20M in Las Vegas
Aug. 30 -- Australia’s richest man, Kerry Packer, known as one of the world’s biggest gamblers, was reported today to have lost at least $20 million in a three-day gambling spree in Las Vegas last month.
Citing gambling industry sources in Las Vegas, TheAustralian newspaper said the billionaire media tycoon took oneof the biggest baths in the town’s history in mid-July at theBellagio Hotel, playing his favorite card game, baccarat.
The sources said the burly Australian lost at least $17million on July 14 during one of his three to four annualvisits to Las Vegas.
“By the end of that Friday, he was already down between$17 million and $20 million and then coming out of theweekend, he didn’t recover,” an industry source told thenewspaper.
Lost $40 Million in 10 Months?
An official at Packer’s Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd.office in Sydney declined to comment on the story.
Coupled with a three-week losing streak last September atblackjack tables at London’s Crockford’s casino — at $16million believed to be the biggest single loss in Britishgambling history — Packer, 62, is believed to have lost up to $40 million in 10 months.
However, losses of this size would only make a small dent inPacker’s wallet. His personal worth in 1999 was estimated at $4.6 billion in a survey of the country’s topfortunes by Australia’s Business Review Weekly magazine.
Packer’s Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd. media group ownsAustralia’s largest casino, Melbourne’s Crown Casino, as wellas the leading Nine Network television station.
Stories about Packer’s huge wagers are folklore.
Big ‘Whale’
“Packer is known as one of the biggest, as we call them,whales in the world,” Las Vegas journalist Dave Bern from theLas Vegas Review Journal told Australian Broadcasting Corpradio.
“He likes to gamble as much as $100,000 to $150,000 perhand on games and sometimes may have two hands going at once.”
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