Poker Winnings Fund Oil Empire

A story about H.L. Hunt, who went from being a high school dropout gambler to becoming the richest man in the world through oil.

"H.L. Hunt was born in the early 1900s and was a high school dropout, but he was this kind of math genius type and a gambler. He ran away from home at age 15, drifted across the country doing odd jobs. Eventually, he had like $50 or $100, gambled it playing poker, and turned that into $100,000 (worth about $3 million today).

He takes that money and starts buying oil leases. He was mildly successful, but at age 36 he was like 'Man, this oil business sucks because I make a little money, I risk it all, sometimes I lose, sometimes I win - it's like I'm still gambling, I want out.'

So he sells all his stuff and decides to do one last thing. With the money from selling his assets, he buys a plot of land in Texas. It turns out to be a lotto ticket - it was the largest oil reserve ever discovered in Texas. Twenty years later, he becomes the richest man in the world.

Throughout all of this, he was a crazy person. He ended up having 15 kids with 3 different women. Some of the kids were total degenerates - 3 or 4 of them died from drugs, plane crashes, motorcycle crashes, car crashes. But a few of them were awesome. One of his daughters started the Rosewood Hotels, and another son Lamar is credited with naming the Super Bowl."