Doyle Brunson Turned Down $230M Offer for DoylesRoom.com

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Thursday, February 15th, 2018 | Written by Shane Larson

Everyone has a good what if story up their sleeve tinted with elements of regret, but as one might expect Doyle Brunson’s tales of what might have been are on a scale bigger than most. In fact, The Godfather of Poker revealed one of his most stomach churning business decisions to date this week on twitter, and its one that still makes him shudder more than a decade later.

DoylesRoom.com

During the online poker boom era of the early 2000’s, Brunson decided to jump on the bandwagon by launching his own website in 2004 called DoylesRoom.com. Naturally, having one of the game’s most celebrated players associated with the site drew a great deal of interest from poker enthusiasts, and before long it became even more popular after Doyle started sponsoring some of the game’s youngest and most talented players as part of his Brunson 10 roster, including the likes of Chris Moorman, Steve Gross, Amit Makhija and David Sands.

In those days, the poker ecology was swimming in money, with players such as Phil Ivey being paid in excess of $900,000 a month to represent Full Tilt Poker. Naturally, there were also companies and individuals looking to move into the lucrative industry, and according to Brunson he was once offered a massive $230 million for his former site. Unfortunately, Brunson could not have predicted the introduction of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006, or the devastating impact it would subsequently have on the industry as a whole.

UIGEA Spoils Party

Following the legislation’s introduction, Doyle said that potential buyers were soon scared away, and that DoylesRoom.com suddenly went from being worth an absolute fortune to “worthless” in a very short time. The final nail in the coffin for the site then came following the Black-Friday indictments of 2011, leading to Doyle ultimately cutting his ties with the poker room and exiting the space.

Despite his enormous regret, at least Doyle has an estimated personal wealth of around $100 million to console him. Spare a thought for his partner at the time, though, and as explained in his tweet:

“Be sure and include a certain person who turned down a $230,000,000 offer for a card room that had his name on it. In one day, it was worthless. This person who had a 50% ownership has recurring nightmares about it.”

Following the revelation, Daniel Negreanu felt compelled to add a bad luck story of his own, stating that at one stage he had been offered $170 million for his Full Contact Poker site, but “literally three days later, this thing called UIGEA happened, so they pulled the plug on the offer.”

Dubious Business Decisions

Doyle Brunson is one of poker’s most successful players, having earned 10-WSOP bracelets, including capturing back-to-back Main Events, and amassing around $6 million in tournament winnings, half of which have come from the WSOP. Doyle also wrote the hugely influential book called Super System (1979) and in 1988 was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

While no one can question Doyle’s poker skills, the 84 year-old would be the first to admit that his business acumen doesn’t always quite stack up in the same way. Brunson was a good friend of the late Chip Reese, for instance, with the two legends having conducted a great deal of business as partners over the years. As mentioned on a New York Times interview by Douglas Martin in 2007:

“They were less lucky at other kinds of business partnerships. Among their failures: oil wells, mining ventures, racehorses and expeditions to find jewels in Africa, raise the Titanic and find Noah’s ark.”

Nevertheless, Brunson has won tens of millions of dollars from his long poker career, with one of his most lucrative activities being the high stakes cash games which are regularly held at “Bobby’s Room” at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Brunson has also beaten cancer on six different occasions, and as he tweeted following his most recent operation in 2016:

“Cancer #6 gone. Squamous carcinoma gone bye bye. Just another scar on an already scarred up face.#Mosetreatment #luckyman #tyJesus.”

The life of a professional poker player is always going to have its fair share of ups and downs, but on balance Doyle Brunson obviously comes out a clear winner in the game of life.