Ronald Meyer: The Craps Whale Who Blew $100 Million
Ronald Meyer: The Craps Whale Who Blew $100 Million in Casinos
Let’s be honest here; gambling is great fun! In spite of all the moral hand-wringing, having money riding on an unknown outcome with the possibility of gaining more, with the delicious build-up of expectation, is such a great feeling. Of course, if you happen to win, that’s slightly better. But we would suggest that the pleasure in jackpot games is to be found in the anticipation. Ask Ronald Meyer. But if you’re gambling on a regular basis, then you’ll know that the odds are generally stacked against you. This is the story of a man who managed to lose a whopping $100 million at the craps table.
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Who Is Ronald Meyer?
Ronald Meyer is an American who was born in 1944 to Jewish parents who’d fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. A great deal of his childhood was spent watching the films and the movie stars at the local cinema. In fact, these movie nights would be a major factor in his future career. After a stint in the US Marines, he started working for a showbiz agent called Paul Kohner. The agency was based in Los Angeles and Meyer spent 8 years there before moving to the very successful agency of William Morris, where he worked for another 5 years.
In 1975, Ronald Meyer, along with a business colleague decided to open their own acting agency. And so the world-famous Creative Artists Agency was born. Though the agency’s beginnings were humble enough, without any office furniture. The two owners were determined to make a success of it and immediately began recruiting new talent. Within a short time, the agency was enjoying massive success. From this Meyer moved on to become President of Universal Studios. Then in 2013, he was promoted to vice-president of NBC-Universal (Universal Studio’s parent company).
How Ronald Meyer Frittered Away $100 Million Tossing the Dice
While at NBC-Universal, Ronald Meyer dealt with many of the biggest names in both show business and the movies. Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of his huge success, Meyer was hiding a serious gambling addiction. He took many frequent trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, with the express purpose of gambling. Especially at the craps tables. On one such occasion, he managed to lose a whopping $7 million in just one session. With his job, he was pulling in around $25 million each year, so he certainly had funds to burn. One of his problems was that he never studied the odds and therefore had no jackpot winning strategies. Up until very recently, his gambling problem was hidden away from the media.
“One of the Biggest Craps Players Ever”
After admitting to an affair with a 20-year-old gold digger, all the secrets seemed to come out of the woodwork at the same time. It transpires that Ronald Meyer would commonly lose between $5 and $7 on each trip to Caesars Palace in Atlantic City. In fact he was such a high roller, that the vice-president of marketing at the casino would regularly send a helicopter to collect him from his place of work at NBC-Universal and then fly him to Atlantic City. If he played longer than a day, then the Mandarin Orient Hotel’s penthouse suite was his for the taking. Living it largely was certainly Ronald Meyer’s style for a number of years.
Why Is This Story Just Coming Out Now?
It’s really an unfortunate tale of skulduggery and lies that the media started to tell in 2019. He had an affair with a budding though talent-less actress called Charlotte Kirk in 2013. He even reached an agreement with her to the tune of $2 million to keep this under wraps. But Charlotte, along with her new boyfriend, had obviously got a taste of the high life and decided to blackmail Meyer for more money. The whole story became public when he decided to stop paying for their silence. Tabloids, being the parasites and low-level feeders that they are, immediately started to look into every aspect of Meyer’s life.
So it was only a matter of time before the tabloids found out about his gambling addiction. Once he had exhausted his line of credit with Caesars Palace, the vice president would then take him to the Foxwood’s and the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. There he would blow through between $3 to $5 million a session. His need to gamble was so all-encompassing that he even approached the casinos in question for loans worth millions of dollars. And then he’d simply gamble them away. No one has racked up losses as Ronald Meyer did at the craps table.
Who’s To Blame?
But let’s hold on here. Surely, you’re thinking, the casino has to take some of the blame for this debacle. Even an unnamed Vice President from one of the large casinos that would pay to host Ronald Meyer at the craps tables admitted as much. He said that the casino should never have lent funds to Meyer in the first place. As he says; “It’s really not a nice thing to do, because the gambler is in heat and wants that money. But if you really care about your player, you send him home. But it shows you how reckless the gambler is and how the people in the industry don’t give a s***. Because they’re getting paid commissions on what you lose. So they want to take as much money as possible from you”.
Casino High Roller Treatment
Casinos know every trick in the book to keep you gambling. And then some! If you happen to be a whale or a high roller, then expect every perk and comp to be coming your way. The casino’s treat these people like kings. And they will put up with any anti-social behavior, whether drug-taking or prostitution. Providing the customer keeps the bets flowing. Ronald Meyer was no different than any other gambler in this regard. He fell for all those devious and not so devious tricks. Anything in order to get him to enter the casinos to win the jackpot. In fact, many of the top casino personals became involved with fleecing Meyer because, they too, knew that a multi-million dollar payday was just a few more rolls of the dice away.
As one of Meyer’s VIP hosts explained: “He was probably in the top three most sought-after whales in the gaming industry. Everybody tried to get him to come to play at their casinos. Some of the comps that Ronald Meyer received included 20% loss rebates and six figures worth of promotional chips. In addition to the free helicopter ride, he’d also get a penthouse suite, stretch limousine, and comped meals at the finest resort restaurants”. Who wouldn’t fall for all of that?
The Double Life of Ronald Meyer
Ronald Meyer managed to keep his gambling addiction under wraps for the longest time. Even his second wife had no idea of his secret life at the craps table. When they split in 2018, she asked an accounting company to perform a forensic examination of Meyers accounts. She thought he was hiding money from her. He wasn’t. It’s just that he’d gambled it all away and now was left with massive debts. Once he’d used up his credit at the casinos, he started to borrow money from loan sharks, paying astronomical amounts in interest alone. Luckily for him, his friend at Creative Artists, Micheal Ovitz lent him over $11 million to pay off the most pressing gambling debts. Then another good friend, Ray Stark helped him out with another loan.
Financial Difficulties And An Uncertain Future
If you’ve been spending decades gambling as a high roller in the casino, then, yes, you’re going to have some serious debts. For Ronald Meyer, things got even worse when he was fired from Universal after the story of the affair and its cover-up came out. That was a $25 million a year gig, that was now gone. One good thing to come out of this is that because Meyer is so broke and so in debt, he has no possibility of hitting up the craps tables. Probably ever again in his lifetime. Right now he’s relying on a golden parachute that comes from being Vice President of NBC-Universal. But the deal is tied to performance numbers. And so the eventual outcome and payment are still very much up in the air.
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