Las Vegas Weekly

November 12, 2009 · 8:27 AM

It’s celebration time for WSOP champion Joe Cada at Caesars Palace

By Robin Leach

Joe Cada celebrates after winning the 2009 World Series of Poker at The Rio.

Photo: WSOP/Harrah's

New World Series of Poker champion Joe Cada wasted no time becoming a high roller after his amazing $8.5 million win early Tuesday morning at The Rio. The 21-year-old Detroit college dropout shelled out nearly $1 million for a blowout to beat them all for his 70-strong cheering squad who came to Las Vegas from Michigan to support him.

Click HERE for our Tuesday story and photo gallery we posted here at Vegas DeLuxe.

I’m reliably told that Joe put them all up in super suites at Caesars Palace and said “the fun was on him”; he gave them each $5,000 to spend or keep; he bought every VIP table at Pure, paying bottle service minimums for the 70-person entourage; and he purchased at least 15 bottles of the world’s best champagne for his own table with his mom and high school sweetheart.

Do the math, and you’ve put a sizable dent in the big win to the tune of well over $500,000 minimum! Joe wasn’t fazed by it at all because he plans to return to Las Vegas for next year’s WSOP and do it all over again. If successful, he would become the first back-to-back champion in the then 41-year history of the tournament.

I’m told that the only hiccup to his mega-dollar night of celebration was that his girlfriend was very unhappy about the huge sums of money he was spending, and they wound up in some form of an argument with Joe leaving solo ahead of all the other party revelers!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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