Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Molly Bloom turned the high stakes poker world upside down
Speaker 1: and shared her story as the author of the memoir
Speaker 1: Molly's Game, which was later adapted into an Academy Award
Speaker 1: nominated film. So, Molly, you arrived in Los Angeles really
Speaker 1: with just the promise of a couch to sleep on,
Speaker 1: and it seems like within a year two you were
Speaker 1: running the most powerful poker game in l A. How
Speaker 1: did that happen? In It was one of those I
Speaker 1: think scenarios where it's kind of random luck and then
Speaker 1: also more profoundly like a girl on a mission, you know,
Speaker 1: because I had this whole idea of how I was
Speaker 1: going to make my life work. And from an early
Speaker 1: age I grew up with two incredibly high achieving brothers.
Speaker 1: One brother was number one in the world and skiing
Speaker 1: at eighteen years old, went on to win a bunch
Speaker 1: of world champs, two time olympian, played in the NFL.
Speaker 1: I think he was an Abercrombie model at some point.
Speaker 1: This was little brother and my middle brother, Harvard educated
Speaker 1: cardiothoracic surgeon. So and these two were just their life
Speaker 1: and their path was established from from the get go.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know who I was going to be,
Speaker 1: and so fumbling around and in this family was super painful,
Speaker 1: you know, because I have a father who is larger
Speaker 1: than life, and when he's proud of you, the sunshines.
Speaker 1: And so I had this this life mapped out. I
Speaker 1: was gonna go to the Olympics for skiing, and I
Speaker 1: was going to check that box. And then I was
Speaker 1: going to go to law school, preferably in Ivy League
Speaker 1: law school, because you know, then I would have a
Speaker 1: seat at this proverbial table. And I put literally everything
Speaker 1: I had into it. I was by no means as
Speaker 1: talented as my brother and skiing, and then I had
Speaker 1: a complete spinal reconstruction. And I was also I had
Speaker 1: to study ten times as hard as my brother Jordan
Speaker 1: in school. But you know, but I gave it all
Speaker 1: I had. And then at the Olympic qualifiers, I skied
Speaker 1: over this little stick, my ski pre released, I crashed,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was I was ready for a
Speaker 1: rebellion because my life didn't work out this conventional sort
Speaker 1: of path that I had set and and there's there's
Speaker 1: this deep, deep need to be accepted in my family,
Speaker 1: to be somebody, to have the significant life. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I really the l A trip was just
Speaker 1: I wanted to take a year off. I wanted to regroup.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just sort of, you know, take a breather.
Speaker 1: But when I got there and I saw how big
Speaker 1: life is in Los Angeles, and I saw how quickly
Speaker 1: your life can change, and I saw this overnight success thing.
Speaker 1: You know, my eyes were open to a different way.
Speaker 1: And then when I, by pure accident, was asked to
Speaker 1: serve drinks at a poker game, you know, it was
Speaker 1: kind of off to the races. Did you know how
Speaker 1: to play poker at the time? You know what my
Speaker 1: best kept secret, worst kept you guys still don't. I'm
Speaker 1: still not great at poker. I think it's an amazing game.
Speaker 1: What was the reaction of your family when you left
Speaker 1: for Los Angeles, and how did you react to the reaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were certainly not on board for it. They really
Speaker 1: wanted me to go straight to law school. They didn't
Speaker 1: understand why I wanted to take a year and just
Speaker 1: basically go be a kid and you know, go be
Speaker 1: in some warm weather. I mean, I think they understood it.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that they have approved of it.
Speaker 1: And so you know, they're like, you're on your own financially,
Speaker 1: which was fair, but there's there is certainly an air
Speaker 1: of disapproval. You had said that some girls have hearts
Speaker 1: and stars in their eyes, and you had dollar signs.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget being sixteen years old and falling in
Speaker 1: love as much as the sixteen year old falls in
Speaker 1: love for the first time. In getting my heart just eviscerated,
Speaker 1: you know, And I just remember making this choice at
Speaker 1: that point that was like, I'm going to put my
Speaker 1: energy into things that can make me powerful and not
Speaker 1: make me weak. Um. And you know, there's been some
Speaker 1: softening of that for sure as an adult. But in
Speaker 1: my early twenties, in my late teens, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be powerful and I wanted to make money, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to put myself in a position where I was
Speaker 1: dependent on no one or nothing, and that was the plan.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through the story of how you
Speaker 1: ended up working for the guy and what do you
Speaker 1: call him? In the book Reared In? But do you
Speaker 1: publicly say his name in real life? Because it is
Speaker 1: pretty google able who he is. It is google able,
Speaker 1: and I don't say his name in real life. And
Speaker 1: it's also like not a name that people would recognize.
Speaker 1: So I feel like there's no you know, there's really
Speaker 1: no point. Yeah. So I got to Los Angeles. I
Speaker 1: had to get a job right away. I got a
Speaker 1: job initially at this restaurant in the heart of Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: and I was waiting tables and there was this older
Speaker 1: gentleman that came in and completely hit on me. And
Speaker 1: I kind of told my manager and they're like, he's
Speaker 1: a regular hair You're just going to have to deal
Speaker 1: with it, you know. And I was young, and he
Speaker 1: was like very old and coming on to be very
Speaker 1: hard and making me very uncomfortable. And I was like,
Speaker 1: well if this and I just walked out, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, so piste off and I'm stomping down
Speaker 1: the street and this guy almost runs over me and
Speaker 1: his mercedes. He's completely obnoxious, and he has this fine
Speaker 1: dining restaurant in Beverly Hills and he's like, do you
Speaker 1: know anything about fine dining? And I was like sure,
Speaker 1: and I knew nothing. So, like, I got fired pretty
Speaker 1: quickly as a waitress. Um, you know, as soon as
Speaker 1: he saw that, Like I couldn't even open a bottle
Speaker 1: of wine, but he hired me as his personal assistant.
Speaker 1: And it was his poker game at the time, and
Speaker 1: he had all these very famous, very wealthy friends, and
Speaker 1: you know, I found myself one night at the Viper
Speaker 1: Room serving drinks to people that I had only seen
Speaker 1: on television, seen on the news, heard about in magazines.
Speaker 1: You know. It was it was quite an introduction to
Speaker 1: that world. So once the game launched, you were really
Speaker 1: at first just kind of the server and the concierge of, oh,
Speaker 1: you need a restaurant reservation, I got this for you.
Speaker 1: You want caviare, I'll bring this to you. And then
Speaker 1: you had this incredible orchestration where it went from being
Speaker 1: Molly as the assistant to Molly's game. I knew pretty
Speaker 1: quickly early on that I wanted to have my own games. Um,
Speaker 1: there was so much opportunity because it was it was
Speaker 1: this opportunity to get in front of really successful people,
Speaker 1: to have access to this very sort of rarefied air
Speaker 1: and all this interesting information, and to have access to
Speaker 1: this network of people who really um move the needle
Speaker 1: on the world stage. And I was just so fascinated.
Speaker 1: And it was also really lucrative because when people are
Speaker 1: using an economic system in which chips denote dollars, they're
Speaker 1: super free with it, you know. So I mean I
Speaker 1: remember I would waitress at the games and I would
Speaker 1: get paid in chips, and by the end of the night,
Speaker 1: I would make like three to five thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: I was serving drinks. So just imagine if I was
Speaker 1: it was actually my game, et cetera. So I knew
Speaker 1: early on that I wanted to start my own game,
Speaker 1: but I was super loyal to my boss. And then
Speaker 1: as I became more committed and more fascinated with this role,
Speaker 1: I allocated more of my time and resources to the game.
Speaker 1: And he said, this doesn't work. You're gonna I'm taking
Speaker 1: the game away from you. You're coming back to the office.
Speaker 1: This was eight months later after I had, you know,
Speaker 1: really started to establish myself, and he wouldn't reason with me,
Speaker 1: and so I went out on my own and I
Speaker 1: organized this game for the following week and I invited
Speaker 1: everyone except for him, and that was how it started.
Speaker 1: And his reaction was to say, I taught you well,
Speaker 1: you earned this. I support you. It was crazy because
Speaker 1: he was a terrifying individual. I mean, I was very
Speaker 1: afraid of him. That is a very interesting lesson that
Speaker 1: that I've learned um and that I've taken too far
Speaker 1: at times in my life. But it started with my
Speaker 1: sports career because I was a mobile skier and I
Speaker 1: was a really scared little girl. Like I was real
Speaker 1: scared of things. I wasn't super brave or fearless or anything.
Speaker 1: And what I was taught was you can be afraid
Speaker 1: of something and you can do it anyway. And there's
Speaker 1: something very exhilarating about that, to walk through your own fear,
Speaker 1: to walk to the other side of that. And so
Speaker 1: that was something that I took directly from my sports
Speaker 1: career and I applied it to business and I applied
Speaker 1: it to life and I'll never forget he called me
Speaker 1: at five am. Then the day after the game and
Speaker 1: he was like, get over here, and I went, and
Speaker 1: I thought he was gonna I didn't know what he
Speaker 1: was gonna do, run me out of town. I really
Speaker 1: didn't know. Um. I thought he was capable of dark things,
Speaker 1: and instead he just kind of got this look on
Speaker 1: his face and he's like, I'm proud of you. Could
Speaker 1: you know? Because from the time I started working for him,
Speaker 1: he always told me you're too soft or too nice,
Speaker 1: You're too you're too much of a pushover. And so
Speaker 1: it was almost like I graduated and I didn't know
Speaker 1: exactly how to feel about that. So that period after
Speaker 1: you had your own game, it was kind of like
Speaker 1: the glory days. I mean, you were the girl in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: you were known on both coasts, you had an entourage,
Speaker 1: you had tons of helpers. Everyone wanted to get into
Speaker 1: Molly's game. And then it kind of all came crashing down.
Speaker 1: How So, the first sort of crash was um when
Speaker 1: I lost the game in l A. And that essentially
Speaker 1: happened because I wouldn't acquiesce to one of the very
Speaker 1: famous celebrities in the game, who really wanted to be
Speaker 1: kind of like a silent partner in the orchestration of
Speaker 1: the game because he was I think looking back, I
Speaker 1: think he was addicted to the game, and he knew
Speaker 1: how to leverage his celebrity power, and he was winning
Speaker 1: a bunch of money, and it was it was checking
Speaker 1: some box deep within him that was giving him an
Speaker 1: almost like pathological obsession. And in the beginning days when
Speaker 1: I was a cocktail waitress for the game, and even
Speaker 1: early on when I was when I was the owner
Speaker 1: of the game, when I started my own games, I
Speaker 1: really I pandered to him a bit, you know, I
Speaker 1: catered to him a bit, and then I stopped, and
Speaker 1: he didn't like that and sort of had this strange
Speaker 1: demand for complicity and I didn't. I didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and and so I lost the game. He took the
Speaker 1: game in a power move. And that was a terrifying
Speaker 1: moment for me because I had finally felt like I
Speaker 1: had something I was good at. I had something that
Speaker 1: was giving me the external validation that I still wanted.
Speaker 1: At that time. This was I was making so much money,
Speaker 1: which was also like a drug, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was so scared to lose that game. So I decided
Speaker 1: I was going to go to New York City, and
Speaker 1: I was going to build an even bigger game than
Speaker 1: I was going to build an empire. You know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't just going to have this one game like and
Speaker 1: New York City was pretty scary and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know that many people. But it was another great lesson
Speaker 1: in you can look at something and you can see
Speaker 1: all the reasons why they're stacked against you, why you
Speaker 1: probably won't succeed, or you can just look at it
Speaker 1: and go, I refuse to fail, you know. And it
Speaker 1: was two thousand and eight, so the economy was and
Speaker 1: it was disastrous, and there are all these game male
Speaker 1: game runners that had run these games for twenty years
Speaker 1: who were kind of really did not want me to
Speaker 1: come to town. But I just you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of put my mind to it and I got creative
Speaker 1: and I and I did it. And you know, I
Speaker 1: talked about running one of the biggest poker games in
Speaker 1: the world in New York City, you know, people losing
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars in a night, like just insane,
Speaker 1: not healthy, but you know, and and overcoming nonetheless. And
Speaker 1: then something started to change in me in New York.
Speaker 1: And I think it had been coming for a while.
Speaker 1: But New York was really where it really took its
Speaker 1: full form, and and that is you know, I started
Speaker 1: to get that more disease, and it was never enough,
Speaker 1: and I wanted more power, and I wanted more money.
Speaker 1: And I also the games would go for sometimes two
Speaker 1: days at a time, and I was up for days.
Speaker 1: So I started taking pills. I started taking adderall, you know,
Speaker 1: in excess, and then I started taking zan X to
Speaker 1: to take the edge off. And by this time I
Speaker 1: was the bank for these games, so I was on
Speaker 1: the hook of people didn't pay, and you know, then
Speaker 1: organized crime got involved, and I was just in way,
Speaker 1: way over my head. But again because I was so
Speaker 1: beholden to this external world, this world of money and
Speaker 1: validation and status and power, you know, I placed it
Speaker 1: over my own life. Did you feel validated within your
Speaker 1: family while all this was your life? No, my family,
Speaker 1: you know, my my mom her soapbox, her platform. What
Speaker 1: she wanted most from us was to be kind and
Speaker 1: to do the right thing, and my dad wanted us
Speaker 1: to be legitimate and excellent. So this thing that I
Speaker 1: was doing didn't necessarily check any of those boxes. And
Speaker 1: my family, they're real people, you know, they're not like
Speaker 1: these sort of affected like they're not affected by like
Speaker 1: the celebrity or the you know, they're real people with
Speaker 1: real values, so this was not appealing to them. Now,
Speaker 1: my brothers enjoyed it when they would come to visit me,
Speaker 1: because it was you know, it was a life of
Speaker 1: heathenism and excess, and but I definitely didn't feel accepted
Speaker 1: by my family. And now a quick break. We can't
Speaker 1: brush past the part where you mentioned that you got
Speaker 1: involved with organized crime. What did that mean? You know,
Speaker 1: I've been running these games for a while. I was
Speaker 1: making a lot of money. Um, I became the game
Speaker 1: to play in New York City, and I expanded. You know,
Speaker 1: I had tons of games going all the time. So
Speaker 1: I guess, knowing what I know now, it was inevitable
Speaker 1: that organized crime was going to hear about this and
Speaker 1: and want some involvement. So these two guys got to me.
Speaker 1: They had to sit down. They made this proposal that
Speaker 1: sounded friendly at the time, but I knew what was
Speaker 1: behind it. You know. They basically said, like, we want
Speaker 1: to be partners, and we want to piecy your game
Speaker 1: and we'll help you collect and you know, basically like
Speaker 1: going into business with the Russian I mean, with the
Speaker 1: Italian mob, and so I tried to explain to them
Speaker 1: why exactly why that wouldn't work for me, and etcetera.
Speaker 1: And then I just started evading their calls and ignoring
Speaker 1: their calls, and they didn't go away, you know, And
Speaker 1: they sent someone to my apartment and I mistakenly thought
Speaker 1: it was my doorman bringing up some packages. And I
Speaker 1: opened the door and there was this face, this guy
Speaker 1: I'd never seen in my life, and he came in
Speaker 1: and he put a gun in my mouth and he
Speaker 1: beat me up, like pretty badly, and you know, I
Speaker 1: basically I was like, I have money, I have money,
Speaker 1: you know. I opened my safe and he took everything
Speaker 1: that was in their family jewelry, whatever, money, even some photographs.
Speaker 1: And then he said, the deal that we made you
Speaker 1: wasn't optional, you know, and if you tell anyone about this,
Speaker 1: we know where your family lives in Colorado. And then
Speaker 1: he left, and UM, I guess that was one of
Speaker 1: those moments where I knew that what I was doing
Speaker 1: was it was so far from center. Because I couldn't
Speaker 1: call law enforcement. I didn't tell my parents, I didn't
Speaker 1: tell anything. I was terrified. I was terrified, and I could,
Speaker 1: you know, I just couldn't believe that now my family
Speaker 1: was in danger. And and so I just waited for
Speaker 1: the phone call. And I honestly I had no idea
Speaker 1: what I was going to say, because this last meeting had,
Speaker 1: you know, they had sent a pretty clear message that no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't an answer. And so I just waited for
Speaker 1: their call. And I was in my apartment for you know, weeks,
Speaker 1: just getting delivery food and you know, the newspaper and
Speaker 1: that's that's it, and and just trying to trying to
Speaker 1: figure my life out. And and then then on the
Speaker 1: on the cover of the New York Times about three
Speaker 1: weeks later, it said ad arrested in the biggest modulated
Speaker 1: takedown in New York City history. And so I guess
Speaker 1: that was the answer why I hadn't heard from them
Speaker 1: and in those weeks and and so um, you know,
Speaker 1: I never heard from them again. But there were there
Speaker 1: were other things is going on as well, wait here
Speaker 1: are we at now when this happens? That was so
Speaker 1: there are other things happening. And so in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: you became embroiled in legal drama. So there were some
Speaker 1: guys playing in the game. They were Russian American businessmen,
Speaker 1: super sophisticated. Said they were Ivy League like, totally played
Speaker 1: pulled that off. Um might have even been I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: But it turns out that they were running the biggest
Speaker 1: insurance forrod scheme in New York City history, and they
Speaker 1: had alleged tied to the Russian mob. So the FEDS
Speaker 1: are listening to their phones and then they start to
Speaker 1: hear about these games, these hundred million dollar poker games
Speaker 1: run by this girl. Up until that point, around that point,
Speaker 1: I had been doing it legally. And then two things changed.
Speaker 1: One I changed that I started to get very sloppy.
Speaker 1: You know, substance abuse had become a problem. Stress had
Speaker 1: become a problem. I was getting sloppy. I like I said,
Speaker 1: I was the bank and I was accruing a pretty
Speaker 1: big debt sheet. So on some of the games where
Speaker 1: I had more exposure, I started taking a rake, which
Speaker 1: is what every other game runner in New York City did,
Speaker 1: but up until this point I hadn't done that. And
Speaker 1: then there was a new precedent set under this law
Speaker 1: that I got indicted for in the Eastern District. Now,
Speaker 1: for the first time, poker running a poker game is
Speaker 1: included in this federal statute. Up until that point, it
Speaker 1: hadn't been, so even though I was taking a rake,
Speaker 1: it was still my My attorney said, like, this is
Speaker 1: a miste meanter, you know, And that's not to excuse it,
Speaker 1: but that's just to give you some context. And where
Speaker 1: my thought process was, you didn't think you were committing
Speaker 1: a federal felony. I did not. Um, And then there's
Speaker 1: this new precedent set in the Eastern District, and that
Speaker 1: sort of set off a series of events. The Feds
Speaker 1: put in a confidential informant into my poker game, and
Speaker 1: then they were able to have a you know, a
Speaker 1: c I witnessed me taking and then UM, I got
Speaker 1: a text message from one of my poker dealers saying
Speaker 1: that the Feds are here looking for you. And in
Speaker 1: that moment, I knew it was finally finally game over.
Speaker 1: And all I can tell you is that I just
Speaker 1: wanted I just I wanted my mom, you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to go home to Colorado. I wanted my mom.
Speaker 1: So I tried to like go straight to the airport.
Speaker 1: I tried to book a ticket to Denver out of
Speaker 1: JFK and my credit card got declined, and then my
Speaker 1: next card got declined, and I logged into my bank
Speaker 1: accounts and it showed an account balance of negative nine million,
Speaker 1: and the Feds had taken everything. And I got home.
Speaker 1: I made it home to my mom's and basically that
Speaker 1: after my attorney spoke to them. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: in this country, your your property, unlike your personhood, doesn't
Speaker 1: have the presumption of innocence. So if they believe you're
Speaker 1: making your money illegally, they can seize it without without
Speaker 1: proving their case. And and then they said to my attorney,
Speaker 1: she's not a target of our investigation right now, but
Speaker 1: you know, if she wants her money back, she can
Speaker 1: come in and go on record and talk about how
Speaker 1: she was making that money and the world that she
Speaker 1: was navigating. And you know, I didn't have that. I
Speaker 1: didn't have that freedom anymore because I had been taking
Speaker 1: a break. I had been breaking a low. So I
Speaker 1: had no choice but to just go away, you know.
Speaker 1: And I moved back in with my mom and my
Speaker 1: grandmother at like nine thousand feet in the mountains, and
Speaker 1: it was really depressing and really quiet and beautiful, you know.
Speaker 1: So beautiful up there, but lonely scary. Where do I
Speaker 1: go from here? But while you were in the mountains,
Speaker 1: you wrote your story. I did, so you know, I'm
Speaker 1: in the mountains. I'm I'm making phone calls. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get a job. I'm trying to reach out to
Speaker 1: my network, and nobody wants to take my call. And
Speaker 1: in some ways I understand that, and in some ways
Speaker 1: it's not what I would have done, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I I tried to get as First of all,
Speaker 1: I got clean. I went to rehab, and I got sober,
Speaker 1: and then I got I tried to get real clear,
Speaker 1: like I don't want this to be the end of
Speaker 1: my life, you know, I don't want to just like
Speaker 1: give up. And so I said, the story is unique.
Speaker 1: Most of the time we hear about this story with
Speaker 1: a with a mail as the lead, as the main character.
Speaker 1: And I'm really interested in stories that allow women to
Speaker 1: be dimensional and not just the stereotypical thing that we
Speaker 1: see over and over and over, and so like, it
Speaker 1: hit on a lot of you know, on a lot
Speaker 1: of cylinders for me. So and I didn't have any
Speaker 1: other ideas. So I wrote a book. It's the only
Speaker 1: one I could come up with. I wrote a book.
Speaker 1: I got ready to publish that book, and two years
Speaker 1: later I got a rested by seventeen FBI agents with
Speaker 1: machine guns and high being flashlights in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. They put this piece of paper in front
Speaker 1: of me, put me in handcuffs. They put this piece
Speaker 1: of paper in front of me that said the United
Speaker 1: States of America versus Molly Bloom. And you know what
Speaker 1: I didn't know, because who really knows this unless you're
Speaker 1: sort of a federal prosecutor or an FBI agent, is
Speaker 1: that they spent those two years building a case against
Speaker 1: me and UM even though my attorneys had said to them,
Speaker 1: if you want her or here, you know, they wanted
Speaker 1: to UM do this GPS takedown situation. So it was
Speaker 1: it was shocking to me because I hadn't run a
Speaker 1: poker game in two years. I had totally changed my
Speaker 1: life and everything, and then I found myself in just
Speaker 1: a completely surreal nightmare, federally indicted. I don't have any money.
Speaker 1: I'm thrown into a Russian mob criminal indictment. I don't
Speaker 1: know of the other people in the case, have never
Speaker 1: heard their name. There's people from the gambling were all
Speaker 1: that I recognized, but these people that were like serious
Speaker 1: Russian organized crime. Like I had a day and a
Speaker 1: half to get to New York City to find an
Speaker 1: attorney that's going to represent me in this fight of
Speaker 1: my life and I don't have a dime and I
Speaker 1: need someone great, you know, And I started, you know,
Speaker 1: I had Remember I had eight meetings the day before
Speaker 1: the arraignment, and seven out of the eight attorneys were like, well,
Speaker 1: we need a retainer right now, and we can't even
Speaker 1: consider this I met with. My last meeting the days
Speaker 1: was with this guy, Jim Walden. He was at Gibson
Speaker 1: Done and he took one look at my mom's face,
Speaker 1: in my face, and he's like, Okay, I was a
Speaker 1: former federal prosecutor. I would have never brought this indictment
Speaker 1: against you. This is crazy, and I'm gonna help you
Speaker 1: because you need help. And to this day he's one
Speaker 1: of my closest friends and one of the people that
Speaker 1: I will just be forever indebted to. And then we
Speaker 1: went to that arraignment and it was like a movie scene.
Speaker 1: There was like a bunch of like Russian mobsters on
Speaker 1: one side, and Russian mobster girlfriends and wise on the
Speaker 1: other side, and then like my cute little mom sitting
Speaker 1: over there, and I'm you know, I remember standing up
Speaker 1: in that aragnem because you have to stand up and
Speaker 1: enter your plea, and like the whole courtroom turned around
Speaker 1: and looked at me, and it was just like, it's
Speaker 1: so surreal. When did you emerge from all of the
Speaker 1: legal trouble. The prosecutors wanted me to become a confidential
Speaker 1: informant um and they wanted information on particularly information on
Speaker 1: the billionaires from Wall Street, the celebrities and the politicians,
Speaker 1: and you know, they thought I could wear a wire
Speaker 1: and help them sort of chase the rabbits down a hole.
Speaker 1: And and if I was willing to do that, they
Speaker 1: were offering a deferred prosecution and um my money back,
Speaker 1: and I just, you know, I went home and I
Speaker 1: thought about it, and I really tried to wrap my
Speaker 1: head around what that would look like. And the place
Speaker 1: I got to with that was, you know, I got
Speaker 1: to own that that I did all this, that these
Speaker 1: were the choices that I made, and I'm in trouble
Speaker 1: for this, and whatever that is, I'm going to stand
Speaker 1: for the consequences, and I'm not going to Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to throw these people under the bus. I
Speaker 1: just that that doesn't feel right to me. So so
Speaker 1: I had that interaction with the prosecutors and then I
Speaker 1: had to wait a year to be sentenced, and everyone,
Speaker 1: my attorneys, my parents, everyone thought I was going to
Speaker 1: go to prison. Did you think you're going to go
Speaker 1: to prison? I did, yeah, And I was thirty five,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know how long I was going to
Speaker 1: go to prison. So you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to make peace with it
Speaker 1: all and that it was not so easy. But um,
Speaker 1: luckily I didn't have to go to prison. I had
Speaker 1: got a judge who was young Obama appointed and it
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, I'm very disappointed in real
Speaker 1: life choices. I was like, yeah, I know, I am too,
Speaker 1: and and you know, he said, I don't think prison
Speaker 1: is the right move here, and that a big part
Speaker 1: of that was Jim Walden. You know how Jim Walden
Speaker 1: conducted himself and and us as a team with elegance
Speaker 1: and integrity and class, and um, you know, I was
Speaker 1: I had a job, and I had contrition, and I
Speaker 1: had gotten gone to rehab and I was doing volunteer work,
Speaker 1: and and he had a great reputation with the government,
Speaker 1: and he is someone that was known and it continues
Speaker 1: to be known as a person of high quality character.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the other people in the case
Speaker 1: hired these like hot shot defense attorneys that constantly get
Speaker 1: guilty people off and and the judge sentenced them to
Speaker 1: some jail time, and so like, I really think a
Speaker 1: huge part of why I didn't have to go to
Speaker 1: jail is because of some of my character letters and
Speaker 1: Jim Walden and my you know, my willingness to just
Speaker 1: get humble, accept responsibility and do what I could to
Speaker 1: tell the story of someone who is ready to do
Speaker 1: something differently. You went to the child expecting to be
Speaker 1: sentenced to prison and you're told there's no jail time.
Speaker 1: Was it like a new lease on life for you?
Speaker 1: It was? I mean, I just remember like barely being
Speaker 1: able to walk out of that court room because the
Speaker 1: flush of like relief and like stress chemicals and like
Speaker 1: it's just crazy. And I remember saying like, Okay, no
Speaker 1: matter what, I have a second chance here and I
Speaker 1: gotta make this count. And I just remember being at
Speaker 1: dinner with my family and I'm always like, well, the
Speaker 1: good news is is I didn't have to go to jail,
Speaker 1: and the bad news is I had to go to
Speaker 1: dinner with my family. And Stewardanet just graduated at Harvard
Speaker 1: for like the ninth time, and like Jeremy, I just
Speaker 1: got inducked into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. And
Speaker 1: I just remember standing there and going, Okay, great, I'm
Speaker 1: the family felon and I'm I'm laughing about it. And
Speaker 1: I could find humor about it at the time, but
Speaker 1: it was bleak. I was thirty five years old, millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in debt, convicted felon, somewhat of a social pariah.
Speaker 1: The tabloids are telling my story in this very reductive
Speaker 1: way about this girl, you know, young girl in the
Speaker 1: tight skirt that served drinks at a poker game, and like, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not here to applaud what I did.
Speaker 1: But it was hard, it was, and it was it
Speaker 1: was a real business, and it was you know, that
Speaker 1: that needed to be said and if I was going
Speaker 1: to have a chance at a future. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the book's got to do well, you know, And I
Speaker 1: wrote the book and it didn't do well. I had
Speaker 1: a big press tour and I was on all the
Speaker 1: shows and I was like, get ready for life to change.
Speaker 1: It's gonna get good again. And and it didn't didn't
Speaker 1: move the needle, and so I said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go find the most prolific screenwriter
Speaker 1: in Hollyowand to write a movie because again, like the story,
Speaker 1: the story as the asset was the only idea I had.
Speaker 1: I'm a convicted fella. Now I what am I going
Speaker 1: to do? Go ask one of those head fund guys
Speaker 1: to give me a job? Like, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get a job in any conventional
Speaker 1: realm that's gonna allow me to even put a dent
Speaker 1: in this money that I owe to the government, to
Speaker 1: the I R S, to the the attorney, like and
Speaker 1: so um. I started taking meetings in Hollywood, and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of meetings, and I started working with
Speaker 1: people who were great, and you know, I had prolific careers,
Speaker 1: and it just seemed like every single one of them
Speaker 1: wanted to tell this tale, this low hanging fruit of
Speaker 1: like girl in tight skirt, and that was not the
Speaker 1: story that I was willing to tell. And so I
Speaker 1: kept like passing, and I remember my brother calling me
Speaker 1: and it's like, why are you passing on all these people?
Speaker 1: Like you live with mom and grandma, Like you've pass
Speaker 1: on this, Like what's wrong with you? You like you
Speaker 1: don't have any options, you know, And I just said,
Speaker 1: you know what, there's a better story, and there's one
Speaker 1: that's that will serve me and women better. And so
Speaker 1: I I got really kind of like mercenary with it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right, I'm gonna make the
Speaker 1: short list of really smart directors and writers, the people
Speaker 1: that matter in this town who aren't going to want
Speaker 1: to write this like very fluffy tale of the female
Speaker 1: Wolf of Wall Street or whatever it was, you know.
Speaker 1: And at the top of that list for me was
Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin. You know, he's my he was my favorite,
Speaker 1: He is my favorite writer. And I just thought, I
Speaker 1: think he writes with a lot of humanity and intelligence,
Speaker 1: and I thought he'd be great with the material. So
Speaker 1: I started trying to get a meeting with him, and
Speaker 1: everyone laughed. Most people laughed and they were like, I
Speaker 1: don't think Sorkin is going to write the movie on
Speaker 1: the poker princess. He's never even written a movie a woman,
Speaker 1: and it's not going to be about the poker princess.
Speaker 1: And they would say all these things, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's again like survival mode is amazing when you've lost
Speaker 1: everything and you have humbled yourself and sort of like
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't really care what these people are saying,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're fearless. You learn how you just
Speaker 1: don't take it personally and you're like, okay, so can
Speaker 1: you get me the meeting or not. I just remember
Speaker 1: having that kind of attitude over and over, and finally
Speaker 1: I got that. I got a meeting with Aaron. Someone
Speaker 1: asked him for a personal favor, and he absolutely did
Speaker 1: not want to take the meeting. He looked at the
Speaker 1: tabloid stuff and was like this isn't interesting to me
Speaker 1: at all. But we had the meeting, and I told
Speaker 1: him my story from my words, you know, And he
Speaker 1: didn't tell me then, but he told me later that
Speaker 1: he knew he wanted to write the movie before he
Speaker 1: was out of the parking lot, and so you know,
Speaker 1: he wrote the movie and made it as directorial debut,
Speaker 1: and who was nominated for every award that there is
Speaker 1: and it changed my life and it gave me opportunities
Speaker 1: that really just were not there before. And I'm super grateful.
Speaker 1: And now a quick break, How did you pay back
Speaker 1: all the money? I was? I was a really good
Speaker 1: negotiator with my movie deal. They wanted they wanted to
Speaker 1: low ball me and give me all this back end,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, no, there will be no
Speaker 1: dependence on the back end, you know, like I want
Speaker 1: this upfront and that's what it's going to have to
Speaker 1: look like. And people walked away from the table, and
Speaker 1: so like I was very good about negotiating that. And
Speaker 1: then also, um, you know the things that I've done
Speaker 1: since speaking and the book sold well after that. So
Speaker 1: that was five years ago. And in the last five
Speaker 1: years what has nourished that part of you that was,
Speaker 1: you know, super competitive and addicted to a certain lifestyle,
Speaker 1: getting outside and nature, skiing, climbing, stuff like that. Getting
Speaker 1: on stage in front of ten tho people having no
Speaker 1: idea what you're doing that all that gives you a
Speaker 1: little bit of that. Man, I need to figure this out.
Speaker 1: Throw me in the deep end baptism by fire. But
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the biggest thing was starting to to
Speaker 1: reprogram my mind and my nervous system, and to do
Speaker 1: that from you know, by means of meditation and mindfulness
Speaker 1: and working the twelve steps and starting to really get
Speaker 1: in there and look at causes some conditions and figure
Speaker 1: out a way to be okay with less volatility, with
Speaker 1: less adrenaline, with with less dopamine, to find peace and
Speaker 1: serenity in the smaller moments, and to not need that
Speaker 1: adrenaline so much. I'll always be drawn to that life,
Speaker 1: and I can unleash it when when I when it's necessary.
Speaker 1: But I have really prioritized making myself okay in the
Speaker 1: day to day and that contentment. I'll take contentment over
Speaker 1: adrenaline any day of the week. And you married a neuroscientist.
Speaker 1: I did. He's very helpful when trying to figure out
Speaker 1: matters of the mind, write brain stuff. I have, like
Speaker 1: my my husband's a neuroscientist and my dad's a psychologist,
Speaker 1: so I have like some good consultants when trying to
Speaker 1: figure out my own crazy brain. It's been very helpful.
Speaker 1: How did you meet? I met Devan and a A
Speaker 1: And I tell all my girlfriends that are still single
Speaker 1: and like still in this consane dating situation. I'm like,
Speaker 1: could you get a drink problem? Because guys in a
Speaker 1: A have been you know, sort of like brought to
Speaker 1: the table and and like had to do work on
Speaker 1: themselves and work on character. And it's like a really
Speaker 1: great place to meet a guy. And then you had
Speaker 1: a baby five months ago. I did, Fiona. I had
Speaker 1: frozen eggs when I was younger, an anticipation for maybe
Speaker 1: going to prison and not you know, like that whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I thought I had this insurance policy and I
Speaker 1: met my husband, got married when I was forty, right
Speaker 1: before my thirty first birthday. We decided to fertilize them
Speaker 1: the eggs, and none of them worked, not a single one.
Speaker 1: And I went to the doctor and they looked at
Speaker 1: my fertility markers and they're like, I would make other
Speaker 1: plants adoption, don't egg whenever. And I said, okay, but
Speaker 1: is there a chance, and they're like, well, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a chance, and I think they put it at like four.
Speaker 1: And then I just got really rigorous in the research.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know all the things I could do
Speaker 1: to affect a better outcome. I wanted to know the
Speaker 1: place I could go IVF clinic I could go that
Speaker 1: was doing sort of like that had the best outcomes,
Speaker 1: and you know I did nine rounds of IVF. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm a first time mom at I just turned
Speaker 1: forty four, and she's perfect. She's my little dream girl. Aim.
Speaker 1: We're going to have to go to the lightning round. Now.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna ask you a few quick questions and
Speaker 1: you can give us your quick answers. Molly, who leaves
Speaker 1: you star struck? It would probably be someone like Gloria
Speaker 1: steinem Hoping McGuire. How do you feel about him today?
Speaker 1: I have found that it does not behoove me to
Speaker 1: hold onto resentments at all. And I also have gone
Speaker 1: through so much and made so many mistakes in my
Speaker 1: own life and ben so many different people that I
Speaker 1: just have of a deep understanding of how tough it
Speaker 1: is to be a human. So I Harbord zero little
Speaker 1: favorite baby product. I love that subscription kit. Love every
Speaker 1: they like, do all the research and and then send
Speaker 1: you at each stage of your baby's life different developmental toys.
Speaker 1: I just think it's awesome, and she's she loves it.
Speaker 1: What book are you reading right now? I am reading
Speaker 1: When Things Fall Apart? By Pemishadrone for the millionth time.
Speaker 1: She's a great teacher. On fear and having a kid.
Speaker 1: All the things come up again, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: reading the Rules of Civility. Luke Burns has been listening
Speaker 1: to our interview and he comes in at the very
Speaker 1: end with a male perspective. I want you to take
Speaker 1: us back to that time when you was like, fuck it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my own and the guy that she
Speaker 1: was a broke away from, when he called you into
Speaker 1: his office and you guys had a conversation. I don't
Speaker 1: want to know if he gave you any ominous warnings
Speaker 1: and if he did, when you started to see them happening,
Speaker 1: what was that thought process? Like, there were so many
Speaker 1: signs right in my face, signs like throughout the process. Um,
Speaker 1: he came back into my life and said I'm a
Speaker 1: psychopath like you are, Like you're off the rails, you know.
Speaker 1: Um My dad written me, writing me handwritten letters every year.
Speaker 1: It's not enough for me to say this to you more.
Speaker 1: I need to put it down on paper. You are
Speaker 1: headed for destruction. And those were the obvious ones. The
Speaker 1: less obvious ones are the ones that we noticed now
Speaker 1: like when you start to live a spiritual life, you
Speaker 1: see it all the time. But back then it was like,
Speaker 1: that's not a sign, that's an obstacle to get around out.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna keep pushing that rock up the
Speaker 1: hill and and like being self will and and nothing
Speaker 1: that no one's going to stop me. But living like
Speaker 1: that is hard and it's exhausting, and even the like,
Speaker 1: you know, there were so many signs along the way,
Speaker 1: but again I hadn't gotten down to causes and conditions.
Speaker 1: I hadn't looked at that the darkness and the pain
Speaker 1: inside of me that was driving me and putting my
Speaker 1: freedom and my life you know, back burner for this
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was going to fill me up.
Speaker 1: And so there wasn't you know, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like addiction. There were no consequences too too great. It
Speaker 1: was like I'm taking this all the way. And so
Speaker 1: even though there were so many signs and there were
Speaker 1: so many loving people that came into my life and
Speaker 1: said this is dark and this is dame jurist, and
Speaker 1: this is bad and you're not you anymore, it took
Speaker 1: what it took, you know, the Feds, the mob, whatever,
Speaker 1: what feels you up now, my kid helping other women,
Speaker 1: sharing a message that you can start over, you can
Speaker 1: forgive yourself, You're second, third, fourth, fifth, chapter can be
Speaker 1: more profound, more beautiful, you know things like that. Well,
Speaker 1: he's amazing and I want to invite her to every
Speaker 1: dinner party. I love her. She's really fabulous, and I
Speaker 1: just find her story of how she infiltrated this celebrity
Speaker 1: high stakes poker world so compelling. And there's obviously a
Speaker 1: hustle and sort of a fierceness about her that she
Speaker 1: would apply to whatever she does. I agree, And I
Speaker 1: think one of the really interesting takeaways, which might not
Speaker 1: be an obvious one, is that Molly is not a
Speaker 1: poker expert even today, and she never became one. Yet
Speaker 1: she learned how to run the operations of this world,
Speaker 1: a very competitive environment, a very hard environment. But it
Speaker 1: goes to say that you don't have to be an
Speaker 1: expert in the thing that you want to run. I
Speaker 1: love that. It's so true. It's a great takeaway. And
Speaker 1: also if you think about it, like, wouldn't you hire
Speaker 1: Molly to run any salesforce? Like she probably could sell anything.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to what's her Story with Sam and Amy.
Speaker 1: We would appreciate it if you leave her review wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and of course, connect with us
Speaker 1: on social media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her
Speaker 1: Story with Sam and Amy is powered by my company,
Speaker 1: The Riveter at The Riveter dot c O and Sam's company,
Speaker 1: park Place Payments at park place payments dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: to our producer Stacy Para and our male perspective, Blue
Speaker 1: Burns