In July this year, a previously unknown entity in poker circuits won the most coveted accolade on the planet. Scott Blumstein overcame 7221 other players in the World Series of Poker to walk away with the grand prize of $8,150,000. This is some haul of riches for a 25-year-old, and is just one of the many unconventional ways in which millennials have made a fortune.
Prior to winning the final table of the most prestigious poker tournament on the planet, Blumstein had graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a degree in accounting. But instead of going into a career crunching numbers in an office, he decided to use his mathematical skills to his advantage in online poker games. He discovered that he had quite a talent for the cards, and accumulated over $150,000 in his total online career winnings. As so many professional poker players do nowadays, the American made the leap from playing in online tournaments to high stakes main events. By winning the WSOP main event, Blumstein is now up there with the best in the business.
Other millennials are finding that starting out in an online setting can set them on the right path to earning unprecedented riches. YouTube blogging is one new industry that has proven incredibly fruitful for a number of youngsters. Felix Kjellberg, who is known as PewDiePie on his channel, is the top-viewed creator of YouTube videos, with more than 9 million page views. Most of his content is video game walkthroughs, and he raked in $7.4 million in 2014 from his modern venture. Success stories like this have led to a number of other millennials getting rich from YouTube. 27-year-old Tyler Oakley has over $6 million from his talk show channel, and Roman Atwood has earned over $8 million from pulling pranks on people.
The photo sharing app Instagram has led to a great deal of millennials getting rich, arguably without having to do much. People like Brain DiFeo, who now has a net worth of $3.5 million, originally thought of photography as a hobby. But after joining Instagram in 2010, building up a huge following and interacting with his massive fan base, the man with over 101,000 followers has made a fortune doing something he loves. Possibly the biggest success story from the social network is Chiara Ferragni, who has a net worth of $12 million. The 30-year-old used the Instagram platform to its highest potential and launched her own fashion and lifestyle blog in 2009. She now has a mansion in Los Angeles and has appeared as a guest judge on the popular TV show Project Runway. The Italian has also been hired by Pantene as a global ambassador.
These millennials have certainly used the internet age to their advantage when making their millions. What could be the next trend to jump on for youngsters wanting to get rich quick? Perhaps virtual reality will bring with it new opportunities.