Illinois governor JB Pritzker won more than $1.4 million gambling in Las Vegas last year.
According to federal tax filings released by his campaign, the 43rd governor of the Prairie State won the money playing blackjack at a casino while on vacation with his wife and friends.
Pritzker plans to donate the winnings to charity, admitting the $1.4 million was a net number and that “it all happened over one trip.”
“I went on vacation with my wife, with some friends. I was incredibly lucky, you have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.
“It was in Las Vegas and I like to play cards. I founded a charitable poker match here in Chicago called the Chicago Poker Challenge that has raised millions of dollars for the Holocaust museum here and particularly to stand up for civil rights.
“And so anyways, that’s all I can say about it. I mean, I had fun doing it. I encourage people to come to the state of Illinois and gamble in our casinos. We have some really lovely places to go.”
The 60-year-old, already a billionaire with a family net worth of over $40 billion, is widely expected to be a 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.
Personally, Pritzker is believed to be worth around $3.7 billion and is an heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune.
After becoming governor in 2019 – a position for which he doesn’t receive a salary – he placed his assets into a ‘blind’ trust where a beneficiary hands over control of assets to a trustee who manages them without the beneficiary’s knowledge.
His tax summaries revealed he made more than $10 million in adjusted gross income last year according to Capital News Chicago and Pritzker is known as one of Donald Trump’s biggest critics.
Trump once called for Pritzker to be imprisoned over his opposition towards the federal deployment of national troops to Chicago.
Joe Lyons is a betting industry writer for GamblingIndustryNews with years of experience on reputable gambling websites. Joe specialises in long form content in the world of sports betting and gambling. Joe is recognised as an expert in sports fields such as horse racing, soccer, NFL and NBA.
