Profits, Losses, Personal Life, and Personal Wealth of Haralabos Voulgaris

Who is Haralabos Voulgaris?

Poker player and professional sports bettor Haralabos Voulgaris hails from Greece and Canada. His birthday is April 7, 1975, and he was born in Winnipeg, Canada.

Haralabos Voulgaris

Among NBA gamblers, he has the best record of success. At the age of 25, he was making millions from the basketball league and betting seven figures on any given game day. A position as Director of Quantitative Research and Development with the Dallas Mavericks was created for him in 2018—the first time a team in the league had taken notice of his abilities.

When it came to the game of poker, he first began participating in high buy-in events on an irregular basis in the early 2000s. He has won more than $3 million in live tournaments.

Important Dates in Voulgaris Career

• He begins placing bets on Playoff games around 1994.
• In 2017, he finished in fourth place at the World Series of Poker’s $111,111 Big One for One Drop High Roller event, winning $1.159 million. So far in their careers, they have won the largest amount at a single live tournament.
• In 2018, he is offered the position of Director of Quantitative Research and Development by the Dallas Mavericks.

Beginnings of Haralabos Voulgaris Professional Poker Life

Where He Started

The elder Voulgaris enjoyed gambling to a high degree. When he was done with high school, he and young Bob took a two-month trip to Las Vegas. Bob was at the sportsbook corner placing bets on NBA games while his father spent most of his time at the blackjack table.

Back in Canada, where the casino gambling age is only 19, Voulgaris was free to pursue his newfound interest after returning from the United States, where it is 21. He eventually concluded that the over/under odds offered by sportsbooks were excessively high for the second half.

Despite the fact that the second half of an NBA game typically features more scoring, the over is still given identical odds at sportsbooks, regardless of which half has the higher scoring average.

A 70 percent win rate for Voulgaris is a direct result of him taking advantage of this weakness. It was the late ’90s when he began routinely wagering $1 million on NBA games.

Through these means, he became wealthy. At some point in the early 2000s, he decided to give professional poker a shot.  He then began competing in live high-stakes tournaments.

Voulgaris in Live Tournaments

According to his Hendon profile, Voulgaris has won $3.090 million in live tournaments. In just 19 tournaments over a span of 14 years, he was able to accumulate that sum.

Thanks to his track record as a gambler, he was able to enter high-stakes poker tournaments as a semi-professional player. That’s also why he was able to amass a fortune with relatively few monetary outlays.

His first tournament result was a $2,500 NLHE cash prize at the Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic in December 2003. He earned $5,540 for placing 17th.

In February of 2005, he made his first truly impressive play. He earned a minimum of $904,122 for finishing second in the $10,000 Main Event of the LA Poker Classic. Heads-up, he was defeated by Michael Mizrachi, a four-time WSOP gold bracelet winner.

On the EPT Monte Carlo’s Super High Roller tournament in April 2012, Voulgaris won €25,000. As a result, he lost €60,000 (13th place) when he went out.

He placed eighth in the $15,000 WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic at the Bellagio in December 2006, winning $135,315. To the tune of $434,560, he took third place in the $10,000 NLHE Championship event at the WPT Borgata Open in September 2007.

He competed in the £1.050 million buy-in Triton Million held in London in August 2019, the largest tournament in the history of poker, but he did not finish in the money.

World Series of Poker History of Haralabos Voulgaris

Haralabos Voulgaris hasn’t taken home a WSOP bracelet yet. His World Series success is limited to just two cashes. Those two payments, however, total $1.184 million.

In 2011, at the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event, he made his first cash. He finished the tournament in 24th place, earning $24,942.

His 2017 World Series of Poker performance included a seat at the final table of the $111,111 Big One for One Drop high roller event. Famous poker players like Martin Jacobson (who won the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event), Dario Sammartino, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Doug Polk (who ultimately won) were all at that table.

Although the competition was stiff, Voulgaris still placed fourth. The $1.159 million he took home from that tournament was the largest sum he had ever won at a single live event.

Actual Money Playing Games

When PokerGO brought back Poker After Dark in October 2017, Voulgaris was a guest on the show. He participated in a $300/$600 NLHE cash game session against pros like Phil Galfond and Bill Perkins for a while.

Voulgaris Career in Online Poker

When it comes to online poker, Voulgaris is not linked to any sites or clubs such as Upoker clubs, KKPoker clubs, or X-poker clubs.

As a Punter on the Sidelines

Voulgaris made his initial fortune, as we previously reported, by wagering that NBA games would end with a total of over a certain number of points. In 2000, he placed a $70,000 wager at 6.50-to-1 odds on the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA title.

In 2007, he employed a math whiz who shall remain nameless to devise a statistical model with which to foretell the outcomes of NBA games. The Ewing prototype was created after 2 years of research and development.

In 2018, the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA hired Voulgaris as their Director of Quantitative Research and Development in recognition of his work in the data analysis of basketball games.

His Only Scandal: Tom Dwan allegedly owes him $1 million

In October 2015, Voulgaris was a guest on Joe Ingram’s Poker Life podcast.

In it, he said that he agreed to place bets for a “former NVG superhero” poker pro with an unnamed bookmaker and that the pro owes him seven figures. News, Views, and Gossip, abbreviated as NVG, is the forum’s “tabloid” section. It can be found on Two Plus Two, the most active online poker community.

When Voulgaris referred to an “NVG superhero,” he was referring to one of the well-known experts who frequented the forum.

Some members of the online poker community, led by Doug Polk, immediately began to speculate as to the identity of the mysterious debtor after this news broke. Polk reasoned that it was probably online poker folk hero Tom Dwan according to the interview and surrounding circumstances.