What Time Will ‘Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street’ Premiere on Netflix?

Thanks to Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, Netflix is starting off 2023 by diving into one of the biggest financial scandals in modern history. For decades, Bernie Madoff was revered as one of the greatest financial minds and investors of his time. That illusion came crashing down in 2008 when Madoff’s sons told authorities their father had confessed the asset management unit of his company was one big Ponzi scheme.

Bernie Madoff’s actions financially ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people and caused untold damage. And this week. Netflix is diving headfirst into the gritty details. Wondering how you can watch? Here’s what you need to know.

What Time Will Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street Premiere on Netflix?

The Monster of Wall Street premieres on the streamer this Wednesday, January 4 starting at 3 a.m. ET. If you don’t see the docuseries right away, don’t worry. Refresh your Netflix app or browser and it should be there. Sometimes it just takes a minute for new episodes to be added.

How Many Episodes Are in Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street?

Altogether, there will be four episodes in this true crime docuseries. Each one is roughly an hour long, so you should be able to knock out this Netflix original over the course of a couple nights.

How Did Bernie Madoff’s Scheme Work?

Madoff was the mastermind behind the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Though the intricacies of how this scheme worked are complicated, the basic idea isn’t. Ponzi schemes are essentially taking money from Peter to pay Paul. Put another way, the scammer takes money from Person B and uses it to pay back back money they took from Person A. When Person B asks for their money back, the scammer will then give them money from Person C. No new money is generated in a Ponzi scheme. It’s simply a loop of people paying back others as the scammer pockets the remainder.

Specifically, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme revolved around his penny stock brokerage, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. The 19th floor of the investment company was a legitimate organization. That wasn’t the case when it came to the 17th floor, the site of the decades-long illegal scheme. Overseen by Frank DiPascali, the 17th floor specialized in investing money from individuals, meaning that these clients weren’t as well-versed as major players or organizations. Some of these victims were elderly people living in Florida. Under Madoff, Annette Bongiorno and Joann Crupi would create false trading reports for clients based on numbers from previous days. They often handpicked the highest or lowest monthly returns on a stock — anything that would lead an investor to believe that their stock was getting the highest return. These reports claimed that an individual’s investments were making money when they very much weren’t.

Madoff would typically deposit this invested money into a bank account. This account was then used to bolster his reputation and hedge his legitimate stock purchases upstairs. When clients asked for their money, he would pull the requested amount out of this master account.

It’s believed that the origins of this scheme can be traced back to 1964, meaning that it was in the works for decades. It’s difficult to determine just how much money investors lost. There are many ways to calculate these losses, and all of them produce different results. But it’s been said that the total amount is between $12 billion and $20 billion. There were upwards of 40,000 victims in this scandal.

What Was the Cause of Bernie Madoff’s Death?

In 2009, Madoff pled guilty to 11 federal felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum sentence. Twelve years later, he died at the age of 82 at Federal Medical Center, Butner, a prison in North Carolina for inmates with special health needs. A death certificate obtained by TMZ revealed that Madoff died of hypertension, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease.