{"id":514250,"date":"2026-03-02T17:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514250\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T17:03:08","slug":"former-mob-boss-reveals-michael-jordans-cold-blooded-reaction-after-winning-5-bet-with-nbas-head-of-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514250\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Mob Boss Reveals Michael Jordan’s Cold-Blooded Reaction After Winning $5 Bet With NBA’s Head Of Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former mob boss Michael Franzese has crossed paths with all sorts of characters over the years, and Chicago Bulls<\/a> icon Michael Jordan<\/a> remains one of the most competitive people he has ever met. Franzese, who abandoned the mobster life in the mid-1990s, shared an interesting story<\/a> about Jordan betting $5 over a table tennis game with former NBA head of security Horace Balmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was working with the NBA, and I was counseling the guys about gambling and relationships,\u201d Franzese said. \u201cI did a lot, especially a lot of the rookies in the NBA. So, one day we\u2019re at a rookie presentation. We\u2019re relaxing a little bit, right after I gave my speech. So, we\u2019re in a room, and guys are playing pool and sitting down and playing cards, and I\u2019m just talking to everybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the guy that was the head of the security for the NBA was a guy by the name of Horace Balmer,\u201d Franzese stated. \u201cSo, he\u2019s in there, and he\u2019s in a jogging suit, warm-up suit. Michael Jordan is there. He looks at Horace and says, \u2018Come on, let\u2019s play table tennis.\u2019 They start to play, and Michael says, \u2018We\u2019re going to play for five bucks.\u2019 So, they\u2019re playing table tennis. I\u2019m watching. I\u2019m taking all of this in.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael wins, of course, right?\u201d Franzese continued. \u201cHe wins everything. And he goes up to Horace, and he says, \u2018Horace, give me my five bucks.\u2019 And Horace says, \u2018Well, Michael, I don\u2019t have any money on me. I got a warm-up suit on.\u2019 Michael says, \u2018Where\u2019s your money?\u2019 He says, \u2018It\u2019s up on my room.\u2019 Michael looks at him and says, \u2018Go get it.\u2019 And I\u2019m watching this play out, I\u2019m saying, \u2018Is he serious? $5?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHorace goes up, comes down, and he\u2019s holding a $5 bill like this, and he hands it to Michael,\u201d Franzese added. \u201cAnd he says, \u2018Mike, five bucks? You make me go off to my room for five bucks.\u2019 I\u2019ll never forget, Michael grabs it out of his hand and holds it in front of his face, saying, \u2018This is my trophy. I beat you.\u2019 And takes it, puts it in his pocket, turns around and walks away.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might seem a bit much, but that\u2019s classic Jordan right there. He has always been an uber-competitive guy with a great love for gambling<\/a>. While the gambled amount wasn\u2019t insignificant for Jordan, it was the thrill of winning that mattered more. He wanted to be better than everyone else at everything, and that $5 bill was the trophy to show he had gotten the better of Balmer, who was the head of NBA security from 1985 to 2002.<\/p>\n

Had Balmer managed to win, you better believe Jordan would have asked for a rematch. The man once lost $500,000 gambling, but then stayed up all night and ended up winning $600,000<\/a>. He was never the type to accept defeat easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former mob boss Michael Franzese has crossed paths with all sorts of characters over the years, and Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-514250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}