Legendary Gamblers: Kerry Packer - The man with the greatest gambling losses the UK has ever seen

Australian media tycoon - and the man responsible for one of the biggest gambling losses reported in British history - Kerry Packer, was a fiend for gambling. Packer was said to have lost £14m, back in 1999, during a three-day losing streak across London casinos. This loss was reported to have been one of the biggest gambling losses in British history.

About Packer's early life

Packer was born in Sydney, Australia in 1937 and he died on 26 December 2005; at the age of 68 years old.

The media tycoon controlled the Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) and the Nine Network, after inheriting them both from his father Frank Packer. Like his father, Kerry was a patriarch to the Packer family media dynasty dating back to 1879; and he inherited the businesses after his father's death in 1974.

Kerry was the sole recipient of his family’s estate, worth £80m when his father died; as his father had fallen out with his other son. After inheriting a media empire, and the wealth of money coming from the family estate, Packer went on to invest in the gambling industry. In 1987, he sold the Nine Network for £600m before buying it back in 1990 “for less than a quarter of what he sold it for” according to the Sydney Morning Herald. 

When 1994 came around, Packer merged the ACP and Nine Network to create Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). In 1999, PBL bought the legendary Crown Casino in Sydney, and later in 2004 Burswood Casino in Perth was also purchased; creating the start of his gambling empire.

Packer's biggest gambling wins

Despite being notorious for his large losses, Packer also swung some large wins during his gambling career. One of those large wins was £16.6m at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas in 1997. This visit saw Packer playing eight hands at a time, worth £125,000 a pop - hence the huge win. 

The Australian enjoyed travelling to gamble and would often frequent the London casinos, as well as the ones in Las Vegas. It was reported that he would win roughly £3.5m a year at London casinos, and his turbulent luck would make casino owners feel discombobulated about his regular appearances - will he win or will he lose?

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In fact, former professional golfer John Daly revealed on the Full Send Podcast that Packer shut down the Desert Inn Casino due to winning so much. Reportedly he won £41.6m in one day and he insisted they paid him cash, leading to them closing. The reason for his cash request was because he had lost £6.6m the previous day and they insisted he paid his loss in cash.

The Australian billionaire would travel overseas to gamble due to frustrations with betting limits in Australia. Supposedly, as he was flying over, he would call casinos to ask how much money they had in their cage. If they told him they had less than £150,000 he would keep flying, but if there was £400,000 or more he would touch down to gamble.

Packer was such an icon at casinos across the UK that the Ritz Hotel in London dedicated an entire blackjack room to Packer. In this bespoke room he was able to play blackjack with a minimum bet of £10,000 per hand.

Packer's biggest gambling losses

Alongside his notorious £14m loss, it is also recorded that in the 1990s Packer played £7.5m across four roulette tables at a well-known British casino and lost it all. This has been confirmed by casino owners in the area. Additionally, despite having had a room created just for him at the Ritz Hotel, it is said that he lost more than £19m in there. 

Following his large London loss, Packer lost £16.6m at the Bellagio in Vegas. Around this time, in 1994, just one day after the new owners of Crockfords Casino took over, Packer lost £3.5m. Although these amounts of money are huge to most - to Packer this was just a drop in the ocean; he played gambling like an expensive hobby, similar to how one would invest in yachts or collect vintage cars. 

A casino executive is famously quoted stating the following about Packer’s gambling habits: "Usually, Kerry would start out betting in the $500 range; he wasn't always pushing in money with both fists but, if he began winning, it could quickly ramp up to $300,000 per hand at baccarat. When he played blackjack, I tried limiting him to $50,000 per spot, per hand. He played a decent basic strategy, and there was a fear that he was getting better and better."

Another one of Packer’s biggest losses was on 11 September 2001, the day the World Trade Centre was blown up. Because of the terrorist attack, he was left stranded in Vegas due to all air traffic being grounded. Now, while stuck in the City of Sin, there was only one thing for Packer to do - and that was to gamble. He played baccarat until he had to leave town and lost an eye-watering total of £23.2m.

Kerry Packer's death

During his life, Packer had four heart attacks and back in 1990 it is said that one of his heart attacks left him 'clinically dead' for over seven minutes. He was revived and was given a heart bypass surgery. However, he was only revived thanks to his ambulance containing a defibrillator machine - something not common at the time.

After recovering he donated an unknown large sum to the Ambulance Service of New South Wales (NSW) to pay for all NSW ambulances to include a defibrillator - which were later referred to as ‘Packer whackers’.

He also suffered with a chronic kidney condition. Luckily his helicopter pilot donated one of his kidneys to him in 2000, but sadly Packer went on to die of kidney failure five years later.

Influence after death 

Due to his affinity for polo, Packer requested permission from the council to be buried on his family’s country retreat in Ellerston near the polo field and it was accepted.

Packer’s life was so influential in Australia that his family accepted an offer of a state memorial service; which was held at the Sydney Opera House in 2006. 

Speeches at his publicly-funded funeral were held by the likes of actor Russell Crowe, then-Prime Minister John Howard and Australian cricket legend Richie Benaud. 

Attendees at the funeral included Tom Cruise, Greg Norman, several Australia cricketers and a variety of politicians.

Packer also had a wife and two children, Gretel and James. Reportedly, Packer left the majority of his wealth to James who became the executive chairman of PBL as well as inheriting stakes in Crown Resorts.

After his death, the Packer family endowed the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery within the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre of the University of South Australia.

His legacy lives on. Thanks to Packer’s investment in cricket, his ‘World Series Cricket’ tournament broadcast revolutionised how the media could bring more eyes to the sport and opened many doors for the sport in Australia; and his ‘Packer whackers’ continue to save lives until this very day.