Charles Barkley, the former NBA icon, has often shared his fondness for casinos. He's hailed as one of the NBA's all-time greats and has a reported net worth of $60 million. His earnings are buoyed by a lucrative 10-year contract with TNT, earning him over $10 million each year.
Recently, Barkley appeared on the Club Shay Shay podcast with Shannon Sharpe and disclosed that he has lost about $25 million in gambling. "I love to gamble, I love to gamble," Barkley confessed to the former NFL star and podcast host.
Barkley's ventures in gambling often led him to Las Vegas, where he played hands worth $25,000. He revealed, "There have probably been seven times when I won a million dollars. But there have probably been 25 times when I've lost a million."
The 1993 MVP once had to pause his gambling for two years as it was becoming excessive. Despite missing the thrill, he knew it was necessary.
He explained that there were times he could have walked away with $600,000 to $700,000 in winnings. Yet, he would keep playing, aiming to hit a million. "We'd be sitting there, I'd get up and my friends would say, 'Chuck, we're going to spend the night.' And my head would say, 'No, we're not leaving this son of a bitch until I win a million dollars.'"
The highs of winning brought immense joy to Barkley, but the lows from losing were crushing. "I felt very elated [when I won], but when I lost a million, I got very depressed. Because of the money, but [mostly] because of the loss. I was getting out of control. No matter how good it feels to win, when you lose, it just sucks," he admitted.
Barkley realized he needed to shift his mindset to stop chasing losses. "You can't break the casino and, since I developed that mentality, gambling is a lot more fun for me, to be honest," he shared in an interview with Graham Bensinger.
Barkley's wealth accumulated mainly during the 1980s and 1990s, when he was a leading figure in sports and a friend of Michael Jordan, another famed gambler. Barkley humorously noted that Jordan would often try to "buy" the pots they played in, leveraging his greater financial resources.