In
casino terms, a whale is one of a very few ultra
high rollers who could give the
house a hard time covering their losses, purely by the sheer
size of the bets they place. There are an estimated 150-250 whales in the world of high end gambling, some 80 per cent of them
Asian, all of whom have
instant credit lines of between $1 million and $5 million at most casinos. It is these few whos
gigantic bets skew the figures so that it is estimated that ,
worldwide, less than 5 percent of gamblers account for 40 percent of the money won
Amongst the whales are players such as the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and the Sultan of Brunei, but the undisputed king of the whales is Australian Kerry Packer, who is allegedly responsible for a 19% drop in the International Hiltons profits in 1996 after a huge winning streak at their casinos. A legend amongst gamblers, Packer once got so incensed with a big-headed Texan oilman at his table bragging about his $100 million fortune that he offered to flip a coin with him for it ......