Daniel Negreanu is used to winning at poker table plenty times, he have collected more than $30 million in his lifetime tournament earnings.
"The idea of owning a piece of an NHL team is the coolest thing ever," Negreanu, 41, told the Toronto Sun.
Negreanu is a huge hockey fan, and even though he might not be able to own Toronto Maple Leafs, having an interest in a Las Vegas team might be the best thing for him. He has helped Foley spearhead the season tickets to skyrocket and sell over 13,000 season tickets.
That is not surprising take at all. After all, Las Vegas has been runner of the expansion of talking (with Quebec) for sometime, and NHL should make a decision to expand this year.
The team's most important owner is billionaire Bill Foley, who has became the face of the public who is trying to bring hockey to Las Vegas.
"I just don't see it not happening," Negreanu told the newspaper. "We have a solid owner, an arena, and we sold 13,000 season tickets."
"If we sell 10,000 tickets, we'll be amazed if we don't get a franchise," Foley said that to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in January. "It would be a shock."
At the beginning of this year, potential fans of the team, which Negreanu is hoping to be named Las Vegas the Rat Pack, was given the opportunity to purchase potential season tickets worth $150.
Negreanu aka "Kid Poker," considers, moreover, that the heat and the limitability of the state income tax will bring agents to the city and to build a competitor for the Stanley Cup in short order.
There have been criticisms of the idea to bring hockey to Las Vegas, given the importance of the gaming industry, there is also the opinions for hockey getting adapted in the between the desert.
But Negreanu says that, even though las Vegas is not hockey oriented yet, it can surely become one. He also pointed out that Vegas has its advantages as well.
Negreanu has also predicted that the team can be a great competitor "in four or five years," free agents can find their home in Las Vegas as a destination more attractive compared to many other NHL cities.
If Las Vegas is to get a franchise in the NHL, they could start playing already from the 2016-2017 season, even if the year after that, it may become a more realistic time frame.
The Las Vegas offered by Foley and the other in Quebec City, led by telecommunications company Quebecor are only two potential expansion franchise to be taken seriously by the NHL.