Phil Ivey announced via his Twitter that he had made a high stake prop bet. To win, he must not drink any alcoholic beverage for an entire year.
In the past weeks, a number of poker pros announced different prop bets; Big One champion Antonio Esfandiari bet he could stand an entire year without sex and then Nick DiVella announced he would spend 6 days in a bathtub. Now, the latest major prop bet is made by Phil Ivey: the nine times WSOP champion is not allowed to drink alcohol of any kind for a year.
While Ivey is not famous for his parties, it is a challenge even for him. The prop bet is on as of 27 August and Ivey celebrated the last day with alcohol with a party.
“Big no drinking bet starts today….my last sip,” he tweeted, adding the picture above.
No specifics have surfaced concerning the stake of the bet but it must be an immense amount, as Ivey would not normally call a bet “big” if it was not.
Ivey has had several major bets in the past years. One of them was the vegetarian bet, during which he agreed not to eat meat for a year. Made under the High Stakes Poker show Season 6, Ivey used the bet as a “motivation” to switch to a healthier lifestyle. Tom Dwan instantly agreed to bet but found the $5,000,000 too much; eventually, they agreed on $1,000,000. ‘Durrrr’ won, with Ivey buying himself out for $150,000 after just 20 days.
It is relatively safe to assume there is at least as much money involved this time as well.
