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UKKerry Packer: Australian Billionaire & Risk-Taking Gambler
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After inheriting the family fortune, Kerry started gambling for very high stakes.
So high that it wasn’t uncommon for him to win or lose millions of dollars within just a matter of minutes.
He seemed fearless at the tables, never setting limits, and always risking more than what people thought he should.
On top of his gambling endeavors, Kerry’s a businessman at heart, as he always ceasing opportunities to increase his wealth.
Although Kerry Packer is no longer with us, we still like to remember the man who launched one of Europe’s most viewed sporting events: The World Series of Cricket. To learn more about Kerry and his accomplishments, please feel free to continue reading.
Background
Kerry Packer was born in Sydney, Australia on December 17th, 1937. He was raised in a standard middle-class family of four, being blessed with a hardworking father, a stay at home mother, and a crazy older brother who didn’t want anything to do with the family or the family business.
His father owned two well-known companies: Nine Network and Australian Consolidated Press. In addition to that, Kerry and his family owned a ski resort, several coal mines, diamond stores, and much more.
Kerry started working for his father at a very young age, loading newspapers for The Telegraph, another small company that his father owned.
Kerry especially benefitted from working, as school was very difficult for him due to an undiagnosed case of dyslexia. He also suffered from a rare case of Poliomyelitis, which caused him to miss school due to moments of temporary paralysis.
A Life of Gambling
Kerry’s father passed away in the early 1970s, leaving him all of his assets, which amounted to $100 million. Kerry even inherited the investments in television and casinos that were well hidden from government regulation.
Since he had the necessary bankroll, Kerry started gambling for very high stakes and it wasn’t long before he became addicted to gambling. He inherited his love of gambling from both his father and grandfather who used to take him to the races when he was young.
Unfortunately, luck was generally not on Kerry’s side when it came to gambling. His worst streak of bad luck occurred in the late 1990s, lasting for over three weeks and costing him $28 million.
However, it wouldn’t be fair to say that Kerry has never been lucky when it comes to gambling, as there have been some instances where he has won a significant amount of money through gambling. Kerry’s expertise is certainly in sportsbetting, especially when it comes to horseracing and cricket.
His most financially rewarded venture was when he spent an entire week at the MGM Grand Casino. By the time the week was over, he accumulated over $33 million from playing various slot and table games.
He also once won twenty consecutive hands of baccarat in only a matter of twenty minutes, winning $115,000 each hand.
Multiple Break-ins
Kerry has had to deal with two different break-ins at the Packer Family Business Headquarters in Sydney, Australia over the course of the years. During the first break-in, twenty-five bars of gold were taken, along with a good-sized jar full of tiny golden nuggets.
After the first incident, their security systems were updated which kept the headquarters secure for almost eight years. During the second break-in, only one item was stolen: a 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol.
No one was ever convicted of these break-ins, but since the people who broke in seemed to know their way around the facilities and because the items they stole were very specific, the police concluded that it was probably an inside job.
How He Handles Business
In 1977, he noticed how increasingly popular the sport of cricket was becoming, so he jumped on the opportunity to start what would later be known as the World Series of Cricket.
Teams from all over the world were invited to Australia to compete in a week-long competition of cricket to see which teams were the best. People worldwide turned their channels to the Nine Network to watch the series unfold and Kerry was pleased to see his company’s profits steadily rise.
People were flabbergasted when they discovered that Kerry had agreed to sell one of his biggest moneymakers, Nine Network, to Alan Bond for just over 1 Billion dollars in 1987.
However, as Kerry had predicted Alan would fail at managing the company and in just three years Kerry was able to buy back the company at a quarter of the price. He re-invested his profit and purchased a 25% share in the Foxtel pay TV consortium, which benefited him greatly.
Kerry isn’t only willing to take risks but he’ll do anything in his power to uphold the same morals that his father instilled into the companies he owned. For example, one of Kerry’s television networks had decided to go behind his back and feature Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos.
As soon as he heard of the devastating news, he immediately called the network and forced them to take the show off air. This may have strained relations with the makers of that show but Kerry felt that it went against his own personal morals and he was unwilling to compromise them.
Kerry’s father certainly would have been proud to see everything that Kerry had accomplished throughout his career.
Personal Life
On top of gambling, Kerry also enjoyed playing and watching Polo in his spare time and even owned several horses of his own. He’s also responsible for the creation of Ellerstina, a team of professional polo players and their horses and Elliston, an exclusive Polo Club.
Of course, within these facilities, wealthy men would often come and place bets on which horses they thought would win certain races. Kerry would always receive a percentage of the bets collected, but the size of that percentage varied per race.
Kerry married Roslyn Packer and together they had two children, James and Greta, who were both married by the time he passed away. Towards the end of his life, Kerry’s health severely decreased, as he had four heart attacks and many pressing issues concerning his kidneys.
In the year 2000, he had a kidney transplant which was generously donated by Nicolas Ross, the pilot of his personal plane.
Business Review Weekly Magazine estimated Packer’s net worth to be approximately $6.5 billion in 2004. Kerry Packer passed away on December 16th, 2005 at sixty-eight years of age due to untreatable kidney failure.
