Rene Angelil was born January 6, 1942 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and is of Lebanese and Syrian descent. His career began as a 1960's pop singer in Montreal, where his band, "The Baronets" was considered "Quebec's Beatles." He is an award winning artist manager - earning the Felix Award in 1987 and 1988.
In 1994, he married fellow Canadian Celine Dion and he is now best known as Celine Dion's husband and manager. Angelil lives in Las Vegas, where his hugely popular wife has a regular singing gig called "A New Day" at Caesars Palace. He's also making headlines for playing poker. Angelil finds time to balance family, work, and his love of poker - often losing and winning big. Angelil can be seen frequently at Vegas casinos playing heads up with Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, and Chip Reese. Angelil recently became the subject of some controversial media coverage reporting his heavy gambling losses. Despite speculation of heavy gambling loss - reports from Caesars suggest that Angelil has actually turned a profit at the casino over the past two years. The London Observer recently suggested that Angelil gambled $1 million dollars a week. Caesars suggests however, that Angelil's total 2005-2006 losses of $230,300 were offset by $259,079 in tournament poker winnings. Despite his busy lifestyle and a bout with throat cancer - Angelil qualified for the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. He enjoys playing poker - and living in Las Vegas gives him plenty of opportunities to do so. Considering the success of his life's work - Angelil can likely stand to suffer some serious losses without any threat to his way of life and he will likely be playing for a long time to come.
