Entertainment
World-famous rapper loses $8 million in a day at the casino and asks to be banned
American rapper Lil Baby has confessed on the podcast ‘A Safe Place’ that he spent 40 straight hours gambling.
Lil Baby is part of a generation of rappers who emerged in the mid-2010s in the United States, embracing and popularising trap music.
This genre burst into the music industry with explosive force and stirred controversy, as urban purists often dismissed it as separate from traditional rap. Despite the criticism, trap carved out its place and dominated the scene, with Lil Baby at the forefront. He rose to fame in 2017 with the mixtapes Harder than Hard and Too Hard, and three years later, he reached new heights.
In 2020, Lil Baby made a global impact. His second studio album, My Turn, became the best-selling album of the year. The album featured The Bigger Picture, a song inspired by the protests following George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter movement. It achieved quadruple platinum certification, solidifying Lil Baby’s position as one of the most celebrated artists in the country. However, as often happens, success brought its challenges.
'I spent 40 hours there... I lost like 9 million dollars'
Dominique Armani Jones, Lil Baby’s real name, revealed his struggles on the podcast A Safe Place, hosted by Lil Yachty. When asked about his most significant loss at a casino, his answer left many stunned. “I spent 40 hours there straight. I lost like 8 or 9 million dollars,” he admitted, adding, “I had to force myself to stop” to avoid losing even more.
The magnitude of his loss prompted him to take serious action. With the help of his friend Michael Rubin, a billionaire businessman and CEO of the sports platform Fanatics, Lil Baby sought a permanent solution. “I forced myself to stop playing. I asked Mike Rubin to write a letter to all the casinos to ban me from entering. Because I do nothing but nonsense,” he confessed. Since then, he claims to have stopped gambling entirely.
50 Cent ‘glad he didn’t kill anyone’
Lil Baby’s commitment to distancing himself from gambling — further reinforced by his arrest in Las Vegas last August for allegedly carrying a concealed weapon without a permit — has drawn praise from fans. However, the staggering amount he lost in a single session has garnered even more attention.
Among those reacting was 50 Cent, who shared a clip from the podcast and expressed his disbelief. “Eight million in bets. I thought only Floyd [Mayweather] did things like that,” he remarked. “He left the place distressed. I’m glad he didn’t kill anyone.”
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