Prop bets are all but commonplace among poker players, although certain players tend to end up making them more often and more messed up than others. Two recent examples are Antonio Esfandiari and Nick DiVella.
Two of the top poker pros of today have announced recently insane prop bets, a preferred way to test each other’s limits in the industry. One of them is Antonio Esfandiari, the three times WSOP and two times WPT champion who won the highest buy-in event of all time in 2012, the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop. His total life tournament winnings are in the register of over $25.5 million, which is, although not pure profit, more than enough to pursue a life of his choice.
And Esfandiari chooses to live large, willing to travel across half the globe to attend a promising party and is usually accompanied by the most beautiful women. It is, therefore, more than surprising that he agreed to a prop bet, in which he is not allowed to have sex for an entire year.
“Big bet again…..antonio esfandiari no sex no release of any kind for one year…can he make it?” Multimillionaire hedge fund manager and recreational high stakes poker player Bill Perkins tweeted about the bet with his friend.
With no official information on the details available, it is rumoured that the bet is about $500,000. How Perkins should check if Esfandiari is not cheating remains an even greater mystery. Still, this is not the first time the two make a prop bet: ‘The Magician’ was not to eat bread for a year, but he bought himself out for $5,000 from the $25,000 bet after just five minutes.
The other one to agree to a kind of insanity is Nick DiVella; his $4,000 goes against one of his friends’ $20,000 and he must stay in a bathtub for no less than six days. The US pro will complete the challenge from 15 to 20 September, during which he must meet the following requirements:
- "6 days live in a hotel bathtub
- Can never leave the tub
- Webcam surveillance
- 1 pillow no blanket
- Party allowed in hotel room but no outside interference to make me want to quit the bet
- 5 pbnjs per day &water supplied
- Phone time 12-130pm
- Visiting hours 130-3pm
- No TV/laptop electronics etc
- Books are allowed
- His $20,000 to my $4,000"
Originally, laptop would have been allowed but the friend was willing to double the bet from $10,000 to $20,000 if DiVella ditches the device and he obliged. Oh, and if you were wondering if he was allowed to use the toilet, the answer is no… The rest we will leave up to you to figure out…
The inspiration to make the bet came from Andrew Robl and Jay Kwik; in their bet, Kwik had to spend 25 days in one of the bathrooms of the Bellagio for $40,000.
