1.) Yes, Molly Bloom from ‘Molly’s Game’ is, in fact, a real person. She is a small town girl who was raised in Loveland, Colorado by her father, Dr. Larry Bloom, a clinical psychologist and a professor. Her mom, Shar, was a professional ski and snowboard instructor as well as a professional fly fisher and clothing designer. Molly also has a brother, Jeremy, who is a professional athlete — and the only Olympic skier in history to be drafted by the NFL. Pretty cool, huh?
2.) Molly’s attachment to high-stakes poker games began in 2004. As a cocktail waitress at The Viper Room, Molly was asked by one of the co-owners to wait and cater poker games going on in the basement with A-list actors like Tobey Maguire. Four years later Molly was running the games herself in other locations, including The Four Seasons, The Peninsula and The Beverly Hills Hotel.
3.) In 2007, Molly registered an event planning business to make the poker games legit. The company was called Molly Bloom Inc. and allowed Molly to legally justify her income which was solely tip based at the time. Two years later she moved the games to New York City in hopes of attracting Wall Street types, once again raising the stakes. Unfortunately, the IRS came after Molly a year later by serving her with a $116k tax lien for not paying New York State taxes.
4.) Everything came crashing down in 2013. One of Molly’s biggest players, Bradley Ruderman, was revealed to be running a ponzi scheme which led the authorities to Molly. They accused Molly of taking money from Bradley to help settle his debts after his bank account records revealed he had transferred her nearly $500k over the course of two years. This led to the arrest of 33 people, including Molly, who was charged with money laundering and running an illegal sports gambling operation.
5.) Spoiler Alert! Don’t read this one if you don’t want to know how ‘Molly’s Game’ ends! So, what happens to Molly after all of this? She pleads guilty in May 2014, but instead of receiving time in a federal prison she’s sentenced to a year of probation, a $1000 fine and 200 hours of community service.
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