With his winnings, he purchased oil properties in the neighborhood of El Dorado, Arkansas. It was said that after his cotton plantation was flooded, he turned his last $100 into more than $100,000 after he had gambled in New Orleans. He had a reputation as a math prodigy and was a gambler. As a teenager, Hunt traveled to different places before he settled in Arkansas, where he was running a cotton plantation by 1912. Later, he said that education is an obstacle to making money. He did not go to elementary school or to high school. He was named after his father, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, who was a prosperous farmer-entrepreneur.

Hunt was born near Ramsey, in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois, the youngest of eight children. At his death, he was reputed to have one of the highest net worths of any individual in the world, a fortune estimated between two and three billion dollars. In the 1950's, his Facts Forum Foundation supported highly conservative newspaper columns and radio programs, some of which he authored and produced himself, and for which he became known. From it and his other acquisitions, which included diverse interests in publishing, cosmetics, pecan farming, and health food producers, he accrued a fortune that was among the world's largest. He acquired rights to East Texas oil lands initially through a $30,000 land purchase from oil speculator Dad Joiner, and founded Hunt Oil in 1936.

By trading poker winnings for oil rights according to legend, but more likely through money he gained from successful speculation in oil leases, he ultimately secured title to much of the East Texas Oil Field, one of the world's largest oil deposits. (Febru– November 29, 1974) was an American oil tycoon.

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