Mikki Mase, the baccarat whisperer who got banned from Vegas

So far as professional gamblers go, few have made it big. You may have heard about the enigmatic Croatian Niko Tosa who beat roulette and stunned casinos by repeatedly winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Whereas Tosa has chosen to stay shrouded in mystery, though, Mikki Mase, a self-styled master of baccarat and sports betting, has embraced the limelight having won more than $32 million from his casino gameplay alone. Not camera shy in the slightest, Mikki Mase has told his story and how he came from a good family to become arguably the most talented gambler.

His distinct flair for showmanship has made him an interesting fixture in the industry's landscape, akin to Brian Christopher, and his story is one worth telling. You’ve asked questions like: Who is Mikki Mase? Is he real? How did he get started? What is his net worth today? And who is he married to? We’re here to deliver the answers.

Mikki Mase, the King of Baccarat – the highlights

Background

• Mikki Messa came from a fairly good family, although he got involved with drugs, gambling, and alcohol from an early age.
• He went to juvenile prison and adult prison and passed both his GEDs and SATs while serving a sentence.
• He experienced homelessness in New York and was able to get sober and stop doing drugs as a result of this experience.

Gambling

• Mikki Mase's highest win from a session that took seven days was $11,526,000 and his biggest loss was $8,000,000. He mostly used to play in sessions of 3, 4, 5 or 15 minutes.
• He is banned from every casino in Las Vegas, although he has suggested that his ban is much larger and affects most regulated casinos outside of Curacao.
• He started out playing in underground games in Los Angeles and would travel to Las Vegas, Nevada for three years which spanned his professional gambling career.
• After ending his professional gambling career, he has not returned to gambling personally.
• However, he maintains a platform where people can apply for membership. Mikki Mase would sponsor their bets on pre-approved patterns and pay out a percentage of the winnings while collecting the principal back. He refunds any losses.

Celebrities

• He helped rap artist Little Baby win 24 out of 25 games of baccarat, fetching him $250,000 in wins, and helping him recoup $80,000 loss.
• He has a copy of Stake and Drake’s contract on his phone as per his words in an interview.

Strategy

• Mikki Mase could release a master strategy that would bankrupt the entire casino business he claims.
• He has been threatened by casinos, with Mikki Mase naming "MGM International" specifically.

Personal life

• Mikki Mase’s net worth is anyone’s guess, cited as anything between $8m and $42m.
• He will be 34 in 2025.

Who Is Mikki Mase – The becoming of a Legend

Mikki Mase was born on October 27, 1991, his real name is Michael David Meiterman. He came from a well-to-do family, and a line of long ancestry of high-stakes gamblers, in his remarks.

Mase became involved with gambling by the age of 8 when his family would gather at reunions and use nickels and pennies to play cards.

A great uncle of his once won a part of a casino in a game of cards in a foreign country that Mikki Mase had struggled to call during an interview, but lost ownership of that piece of the casino in that very same game, which gave rise to a funny albeit untrue anecdote that his family owned casinos. That uncle eventually lost everything because of gambling.

By the age of 11, he was already using drugs and drinking alcohol, and by the age of 12, he was also selling pills to older kids. In his own words, he did so out of a "drive to hustle" as well as a desire to be recognized and respected by older kids.

Mikki Mase had a troubled time growing up and at the age of 15, he eventually went to juvenile prison and spent 364 days inside. When he was released, his father was sentenced to five years in federal prison, pleading guilty to mail fraud and bribery.

Homelessness is a choice. The choices you made are what got you homeless, and the only reason you’re still homeless is that you are continuing to make choices that keep you homeless.

While in juvenile prison, Mikki Mase studied on his own and earned his GED. Later, as an adult in prison, he took the SATs and applied to five colleges, getting accepted into all of them. He would also end up homeless living in New York, and experiencing homelessness several times throughout life.

This experience taught Mikki Mase that, in his view, homelessness is a choice. Or, rather, the result of a series of bad choices people consciously make. His time sleeping rough helped him get clean and sober.

How did Mikki Mase become a gambling superstar?

Despite his background, which saw him pushed to extremities, Mikki Mase ran a successful rehabilitation business and owned a share in a network that ran 300 pharmacies. Eventually, he made enough money, and following several misfortunes in his personal life (his friend Rizzo getting killed and splitting up with his girlfriend) he moved to Los Angeles around 2020.

It was easier to decipher how the casino was rigging the game baccarat than it was the other games.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he was approached by one of the few people he knew in the city and asked if he would want to participate in a private high-stakes underground game. Having tasted Los Angeles’ social life in his own words, Mikki Mase started frequenting more card rooms until he was playing six days a week at various spots.

He would originally play double deck blackjack before transitioning to baccarat and eventually earning his moniker "The King of Baccarat," and becoming, as he likes to put it – exiled from Las Vegas. He was not attracted to the game by chance either.

He argued that to him, "it was easier to decipher how the casino was rigging the game baccarat than it was the other games." Mikki Mase has made similar comments about casinos cheating players on multiple occasions but ample evidence suggests that this is not the case.

Mikki Mase’s gambling career spanned 3 years

Regardless, Mikki Mase began his gambling career with frequent trips to Vegas, and his official gambling career spanned 3 years in his own words. Initially, he argued he would win $20,000 to $50,000 a week during his first year. He won purely on luck he said in an interview with VladTV.

I mean I can count cards, counting cards is not hard.

In his second year, though, his luck would turn a little better, with Mikki Mase arguing that he started to win six figures easily. In his 18th month of what he would describe as professional gambling, he had his first million-dollar win, either $1.125m or $1.250m in his account.

This was a huge opportunity for Mikki Mase, who realized that he could earn a living gambling. By the end of his career in his third year, before he was "permanently banned" from Las Vegas, he claims to have averaged close to $1m wins every week.

His total winnings amounted to $32m, according to his testimonies in various interviews recorded recently after his gambling career was arguably over. He claimed that in an interview for Soft White Underbelly, which you can watch in the video.

Mikki Mase’s biggest winning session was $11,526,000, and gamblers have been asked to leave for much less. Just ask the roulette whisperer Niko Tosa, whom you may find trouble locating. It happened over a period of seven days, during which Mikki Mase was short-playing, sitting down for quick sessions of 3, 4 5, and 15 minutes in his own words.

He was betting $250,000 a hand and argued that if the dealer was dealing fast, it was easy for Mikki Mase to win $1m in a single minute. On another occasion, he won $3,100,000. Conversely, though, Mikki Mase has known some hefty losses as well. His largest loss was $8m over a whole night, and he ascribed this to the casino cheating.

He eventually was able to win back up to $9m, making more than he had lost, after, in his own words, he had figured out how he was being cheated. His gambling, though, led to him getting banned from "all" Vegas casinos, which is roughly 150 casinos, depending on how you define casinos in the first place.

Mikki Mase made an even more interesting claim that he was indeed banned from every casino in the world in an interview for MBH Clips.

Following the end of his professional career, Mikki Mase decided to try private games for a while and that was going alright but, as he puts it, he "has been there and done that," so he found no reason to gamble.

The making of Mikki Mase - the gambling guru

Mikki Mase is often associated with celebrities, and there are some interesting nuggets about the way he has been interacting with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry. Some of those include Drake and Little Baby, who in his own words, helped him establish his profile and reach more people.

Drake – "I got him that Stake contract, it’s on my phone"

Mikki Mase came to know Drake through chance. One night at a pool party, he received a call from a friend of his that Drake, the Canadian-born rapper Aubrey Graham, was following him on social media. Mikki Mase had to naturally follow back and a conversation was quickly struck afterwards.

Drake would soon become famous for placing large bets at crypto online casino Stake.com, a website that has attracted numerous famous people to promote it, and in one interview, Mikki Masse confirmed that it was him who got him the contract, and even had a copy on his phone.

The rapper has been infamously tied to the so-called Drake curse, which was recently debunked. As to whether Drake was using his own money to gamble on Stake, Mikki Mase simply stated that Drake was a modern-day Michael Jackson and brands would do anything to have him.

Early claim to fame – all Little Baby’s doing

Although Mikki Mase had already been making waves on his own, his early claim to fame, in his own words had to do with one eventful gambling night when he walked into a casino in the company of celebrated rap artist Little Baby. He helped the rapper win 24 out of 25 baccarat games, fetching him $250,000. You can see the story here:

Drive for gambling and hustling hard to die

He has not given up on betting and gambling entirely, though, as he offers others his advice on how to bet and gamble, and offers to cover 100% of their losses, according to an interview he gave for VladTV.

The way this works is for anyone interested to reach out to Mikki Mase and answer a questionnaire. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted back, and they will receive money from the gambler’s team.

The bets that these people would be placing afterwards would only be accepted through pre-approved platforms, and the size of each wager would be based on a person’s normal spending habits.

Some players, Mikki Mase said in that interview, would only bet $5,000 a week, while others, such as high rollers, may go as high as $250,000 a week.

At the end of 2024, Mikki Mase had paid out $1.9m to "his fans" as the people who have let him use their accounts according to his interview with VladTV, with the sum confirmed by the host reading out of Mikki Mase’s private documentation. That information was never shown on screen.

The money was supposedly paid within a year. The operation was set up on October 8, 2023.

What Is the Mikki Mase gambling strategy?

Mikki Mase has not outlined his gambling strategy outright, which is what exasperates most people. The most he has said is that he is not counting cards, but it was not what he was doing.

In the case of baccarat, he claims to be able to reverse engineer the game, spot any potential aberrations, and leverage his large bankroll to come up on top, much like he did in that $8m loss story.

His claims of casino cheating have been received with incredulity and dismissal for the most part, but the fact that he has arguably amassed an eye-watering sum of winnings – some $32m from gambling is enough to keep people intrigued and focused on him.

Although it’s statistically impossible to beat baccarat due to the house edge, the fact remains that Niko Tosa has won against roulette, even though it should be impossible for someone to win consistently at a game of either roulette or baccarat.

The plan that would crash all the casinos

Although Mikki Mase has been rather cryptic about his gambling strategy, he has purported that he had a plan that if released would crash all the casinos out there. The strategy involves different angles, the gambler shared in an interview. One of those angles is the so-called "active angle."

I worry about making a casino go out of business because of something I have done - I have been preparing for it.

The other "angle," would take about one year to be beta-tested successfully, and another two years to cash out and as of 2025 it was not clear if it had paid off. Although the details of both these angles, part of this master plan, seem outlandish and are not fleshed out at all, Mikki Mase maintains that if he were to release his plan to the public, casinos would go out of business.

However, the gambler has also argued that he was worried about not helping a casino go under, supposedly by sharing his strategy with enough people.

Has he been threatened by casinos?

Mikki Mase has shared that casinos have not sought to physically harm him or threaten his life, but he alleged that the president of "MGM International" on one occasion sent his right-hand man and supposedly tried to defraud the gambler out of $9.5m.

In addition, the man allegedly threatened to report him to the Internal Revenue Service. According to Mikki Mase, the casinos are known to do all sorts of dirty tricks to keep players coming back and even prevent them from leaving on the way out.

At one point he shared a personal anecdote having experienced a similar treatment at a casino. Transferring chips between two casinos, he found out that the casino had shorthanded him $1m, which the cashier was refusing to acknowledge, so a lawyer had to get involved. However, the case was resolved quickly by the end of that same day.

Does Mikki Mase invest in stocks?

Mikki Mase is not a stock investor, although he has thought about it. On one occasion he said that he had given it serious thought but ultimately decided against it.

The knowledge he would need to cultivate to be competitive and to turn a profit would prove too overwhelming, he mused.

However, it’s not so much a question of ability as it is a matter of how he would rather spend his time. As he puts it, he would rather do something else.

Mikki Mase and crypto – let’s not talk about it

Mikki Mase said in one interview that he had helped create some of the biggest tokens in the crypto industry back in the day but has been somewhat reluctant to speak on the topic. He is best friend with CoinMarketCap.com’s founder in his own words. However, ask Mikki Mase if crypto is a scam, and he will answer affirmatively – yes, it is.

Is Mikki Mase Real?

Mikki Mase is a real person, and there have been multiple accounts of people knowing him or living in the same areas where he has lived and having heard of him and his entrepreneurial spirit. Although a lot of the story is still plagued by plot holes, Mikki Mase is indeed a real person.

However, the issue of whether he is "real" has more to do not with whether Michael David Meiterman exists, but rather, if there is a grain of truth to his gambling exploits. The community has been split on this case. One Reddit user did not mince his words in describing the authenticity of Mikki Mase, the gambler:

If you decided he’s a total fraud, snake oil salesman, or garden variety charlatan, I think you’d probably be pretty close to the truth.

Mikki Mase’s comments suggesting that casinos cheat are certainly not very helpful as well, as all land-based casinos, and especially those in Las Vegas undergo scrupulous checks and are fined even for minor infringements, let alone for full-blown rigging of the games.

Some of the people who have tried to debunk and expose Mikki Mase as a scammer include YouTuber Cornelia who was invited by the gambler to take a look at his account and tax statements.

By the end of their encounter, Cornelia admitted that he was now convinced that Mikki Mase’s gambling exploits were not a fabrication, although he remained confused as to how the man could have pulled it all off.

Mikki Mase Current Controversies

So far as Mikki Mase controversies go, other than his involvement with underground card rooms, he is also known to have been involved in orgies and sex parties. He has repeatedly picked up fights or accused casinos of cheating on certain occasions, although details about these specific cases remain few and in between.

A Reddit user claimed that Mikki Mase came from a wealthy family that had been known to "defraud local governments in New Jersey," but this has not been substantiated in extensive reporting. Mikki Mase loves the spotlight, but he is hardly a person who makes big media headlines.

In April 2024, he was briefly questioned by police in Los Angeles, after gunshots were heard in a Chatsworth neighborhood and he was found at the scene with other people. Mase simply stated that it was not a crime to walk on a public walkway and that police had pointed guns at him.

Do we know who Mikki Mase is?

All told, we have a lot of information about who the gambler is. Mikki Mase has been readily talking about his experiences and has a lot of social media content to back many of the claims he has made over the years. He has this unflinching way of sharing juicy details about his life which either points to a superb conman or someone who has truly lived through what they say they have done.

How he came to work his way up from a rehab facility to buying and owning networks of pharmacies and such facilities may appear a little incredulous. This is a man who says he can win 24 out of 25 baccarat hands in minutes, who claims to have earned $32m of professional gambling, and who claims to repeatedly beat sports betting platforms through a network of thousands of accounts.

All told, Mikki Mase is a divisive and enigmatic figure. Despite his constant appearance and easy-going way, the claims he made are both fascinating and slightly incredulous. This only adds to his cult status. Whether he is the real deal you will have to decide for yourself.

Image credit: YouTube (@VladTV)