Poker players are supposed to have some of the world's sharpest minds. They can do ultra-quick calculations about what to do at the poker table. But sometimes they become morons. Just say "proposition bet" and see what happens.
Professional gambling can be quite boring. When something becomes a profession, it tends to lose its mystique; and ones who have gambling as a job don't expose themselves for risks as recreational gamblers do.
With that said, most gamblers are action junkies to the bone, and they need their fixes of bets that make the heart pound. As a result of this, many pros make proposition bets with each other - one more outrageous than the other. Let's take a look at some of them.
Losing Weight
Proposition bets about weight loss is maybe the most common side bet among poker players. To be honest, playing poker isn't the most physically exhausting pursuit, and poker player are often quite large.
It's said that the safest bet in Las Vegas is betting against Doyle Brunson that he's not going to lose weight. Brunson is supposed to have lost $3 million in this type of bet over the years. But quite recently a group of players gave Brunson 11 times the money on that he wasn't going below 150 kilogram. Doyle wagered $100,000. And won.
Ted Forrest
Poker professional Ted Forrest has made some of the craziest promotional bets so he's worth his own category.
Forrest is a rare species among poker players. He's actually quite athletic and won't get any action on bets regarding losing weight. But he has his own way of doing this - he bets on guessing other peoples weight instead. Once he beat Jennifer Harman in one of those bets, and the funny thing is that it was Harman's husband they put on the scale.
Forrest has wagered $10,000 that he could drink 10 beers in 30 minutes, and managed to do it. He has also bet that he could do a standing back flip. It resulted in $10,000 to Forrest. But he lost when he said that he could bench 225 pounds 50 times in 24 hours.
One of the most memorable proposition bets by Forrest is when he was supposed to run a marathon in Las Vegas on a 115-degree day (46 Celsius). To be able to measure the distance correctly, he ran in track-and-field stadium. Of course forest did it and he won $7,000 - too little some might say. 10 Gs for a back flip and 7 Gs for a marathon?
1 Cheeseburger vs. 3 Olives
Howard Lederer is a hard-core vegetarian, and David Grey hates olives - that's the basic plot for the following prop bet. On a regular day in Las Vegas, Gray told Lederer that he would get $10,000 if he managed to eat a cheese burger, if he failed, the same amount would go to Grey.
Lederer ordered a cheeseburger with extra pickles, ate it, and Grey paid up. But Lederer felt that this was too easy money so he gave Grey the chance to win the money back. He just had to eat three green olives. Grey refused.
Lederer said that the bet is on, so whenever Grey is in need of ten grand, he just have to eat tree little olives.
Well, this was just a scratch on the surface. Maybe we'll get the chance to come back with more outrageous Las Vegas prop bets.
