The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, made more than $1.4m while gambling in Las Vegas last year, according to federal tax filings released by his campaign team.
Pritzker, already a billionaire with a family net worth of $41.6bn, who is widely seen as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, won the money after playing blackjack at a Las Vegas casino while on vacation with his wife and friends, according to his campaign spokesperson.
The governor plans to donate his winnings to charity, his campaign told NBC.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Pritzker said: “I went on vacation with my wife, with some friends. I was incredibly lucky, you have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.
“It was in Las Vegas and I like to play cards … I founded a charitable poker match here in Chicago called the Chicago Poker Challenge that … has raised millions of dollars for the Holocaust museum here and particularly to stand up for civil rights. And so anyways, that’s all I can say about it. I mean, I had fun doing it. I encourage people to come to the state of Illinois and gamble in our casinos. We have some really lovely places to go,” Pritzker continued.
He added that the $1.4m was a net number and that “it all happened over one trip”.
“Anybody who’s played cards in a casino knows that … you often play for too long and lose whatever it is that you won. I was fortunate enough to have to leave before that happened,” the governor said.
Pritzker is personally worth approximately $3.7bn and is an heir to the Hyatt hotels chain. Upon becoming governor in 2019, a position for which he does not receive a salary, Pritzker placed his assets into a “blind” trust, in which a beneficiary hands over control of assets to a trustee who manages them without the beneficiary’s knowledge.
Nevertheless, Pritzker’s tax summaries have revealed that the governor made more than $10m in adjusted gross income last year, Capital News Chicago reported.
The Democratic governor has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s strongest critics, particularly as the president called for Pritzker to be jailed over his opposition towards the federal deployment of national troops to Chicago.
Earlier this summer, he announced that he was running for a third gubernatorial term next year and in response to whether he is planning to run for president, Pritzker said: “I don’t know what the future holds … What I can tell you is I’m totally dedicated to upholding the rights of people in the state of Illinois and making sure that we’re protecting them, especially from a tyrant who’s taken over the White House.”
