Best Poker Prop Bets

1. Best Poker Prop Bets Games
2. Best Poker Prop Bets Real Money
3. Best Poker Player Prop Bets
4. Best Poker Prop Bets Odds
5. Top Poker Prop Bets

This bet doesn’t have any money attached to it but is still a classic moment in poker prop bet history. When Phil Hellmuth was knocked out of the 2002 World Series of Poker Main Event by amateur Robert Varkonyi, he was confident that Varkonyi had zero shot of winning and bet that if he did somehow pull off the miracle, he would shave his head. The best poker prop bets or proposition bets are interesting, often outrageous, dangerous or just hilariously funny, which gamblers often resort to for fun.

With the results now in of Mike Noori’s prop bet to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s in just 36 hours, Paul Phua lists five more poker prop bets that were even crazier

In the first part of my top 10, I wrote that poker player Mike Noori would be attempting to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s food in just 36 hours for a prop bet. The results of the weekend’s food-fest are in, and… he failed. To be fair, most people thought it was physically impossible!
Mike Noori entered the event in good spirit, dressed up as McDonald’s character the Hamburglar, and Tweeting video clips and updates as @McHamburgler1k. However, the writing was on the wall when he Tweeted: “10 hours in, $90 worth of food consumed. Mental state = shaky”. The final Tweet conceding defeat said that it had been “a fun time” and that the event had raised $14k for charity.
Will poker players go to any lengths for a prop bet? Judge for yourself, with the final five entries in my top 10, below.

Ashton Griffin and the ultra marathon

Poker players don’t always take the greatest care of themselves, which makes Ashton Griffin’s prop bet feat particularly impressive. In 2011, he claimed he could run 70 miles on a treadmill within 24 hours, and got enough people interested in the action to have $300,000 riding on success. Griffin was just 22, and hugely fit; he must have known he could do it, because he went out partying the night before his physical ordeal. Despite concerns for his health – his own parents turned up halfway through to plead with him to stop – he completed the 70 miles with 45 minutes to spare. Talk about “running good”!

Dan Bilzerian and the Vegas bike challenge

You might more readily associate Dan Bilzerian with private jets than bicycles, but the poker-playing playboy also completed an impressive physical challenge for a prop bet. He was bet $600,000 that he couldn’t cycle from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in less than 48 hours. Bilzerian had hardly touched a bicycle in years, so he left nothing to chance. He says he spent nearly $150,000 on preparing for the feat of endurance, including getting coaching from Lance Armstrong. In the end, it wasn’t even close: Bilzerian aced it in just 33 hours.

Joe Sebek and the face tattoos

Many prop bets involve tattoos, or haircuts. After being eliminated from the 2002 WSOP Main Event by Robert Varkonyi, Phil Hellmuth said he would shave his head if Varkonyi went on to win. He did, and Hellmuth honoured the bet. But the one the players likely regret most was a “last longer” bet between Joe Sebok, Jeff Madsen, and Gavin Smith: the loser had to get tattooed with the others’ faces. Sebok is the one with a permanent ink reminder on his skin of both men, while Jeff Madsen, who busted out next, “only” had to have a tattoo of Gavin Smith.

Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow and the crash diet

In 2008, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow won a $100,000 bet from Ted Forrest by losing 60lbs in a year. Two years later, the tables were turned: this time it was Forrest who had to get down to a trim 140lbs, by losing 48lbs. Forrest bet $50,000 at 10:1 he could do it in just four months, and another $100,000 at 20:1 he could do it in two. Two months to lose 40lbs is a tall order, but with $2 million riding on his crash diet, Forrest literally starved himself for the last ten days and made it just before the shorter deadline.

John Hennigan and the exile to Iowa

One of the most telling of all prop bet stories is told by Howard Lederer. Poker player John Hennigan was once bet that he couldn’t spend a quiet six weeks in casino-free Des Moines, Iowa. Some say the bet was $50,000, some say it was $100,000, but it certainly sounds like an easy enough bet to win. Hennigan even said he was looking forward to working on his golf. But after just two days he bought out of the bet and returned sheepishly to Vegas. It seems like the only prop bet a dedicated gambler can’t possibly win is a bet not to gamble!

(Photo: Thehendonmob.com)

If they don’t involve Bill Perkins, Antonio Esfandiari or Dan Bilzerian, they don’t get much exposure these days, but crazy and wonderful prop bets are not the preserve of the ‘Billionaire club’ – sometimes even ordinary millionaires indulge in some mad action to fill the gaps in the poker calendar!

Even the quiet men of poker have been known to fall prey to the fun and games – poker pros such as John Juanda, a reserved and thoughtful man at the table. Last year, however, he went missing from the poker scene almost entirely. The reason?
'I made a bunch of prop bets with a good friend of mine. I don’t know how it started[/quote] we had dinner and a couple of drinks, and then we started challenging each other.”

Semper Fi

In an interview with PokerListings he relates how the prop bets took over his life for 12 months.

'We ended up betting insane amounts of money on really crazy stuff. For example he bet me that I couldn’t do 20 pull-ups - and I mean Marine Corps pull-ups - and he gave me six months to train for it. We also bet on running five kilometers. And here’s a very interesting one.”

(Photo: Cardplayer.com)

Hopping mad!

'He bet me he would be faster hopping 50 yards on one foot than me running 100 yards normally. He offered me the bet at his Christmas party, saying ‘this is a sucker bet, I’m hustling you,' but I thought about it and couldn’t believe he would be faster.”

“I passed him and won,” said Juanda, who swapped Vegas life for the delights of Tokyo some five years ago. “But it was close. I also ended up doing 22 pull-ups.”

“We also had another crazy bet on who would do better in proficiency in the Japanese language test. I basically spent eight-and-a-half hours everyday this year training and studying. But now we’ve settled our bets and I started playing a little bit of poker again.”;

Juanda isn’t the only one to find prop-betting taking over their lives. Old-time legend Amarillo Slim probably spent as much time betting off the table as he did on it – and with just as much success!

Blind bowling?

Slim’s prop-betting prowess involved offering odds on weird-sounding things, but in fact he pretty much knew what would happen beforehand.

For example, having seen how difficult it is to play bowling blindfolded, he’d bet someone he couldn’t break 100, knowing that even very good bowlers get disoriented so quickly they had little chance of finding the lane let alone scoring heavily.

Out of the frying pan

Another famous prop-bet he made involved playing a tennis pro at table tennis, but with Slim using a frying pan. Little did the tennis player suspect that Amarillo had practiced for many months for just such a money-making opportunity. Another time he used a glass coke bottle instead of a regular paddle, again winning the bet, this time against a Taiwanese table-tennis champion.

Best Poker Prop Bets Games

Hole in one pocket

Another favorite game of the prop-betting fraternity is golf, where bets can be made on almost anything. Just ask Erick Lindgren, who famously broke the 100 barrier four times in a single day, in the searing Nevada desert heat of about 120 degrees – using only a 5-iron, a wedge and a putter!

It wasn’t just any old pitch and putt municipal either – it was on Bear's Best, a Jack Nicklaus designed course –and the cameras were rolling and $340,000 was at stake. Lindgren did it, but later claimed he wouldn't do it again because it took so much more out of him than he had expected.

Best Poker Prop Bets Real Money

Tiger, tiger burning bright

Pretty impressive, and a similar score as Barry Greenstein made when he took John ‘Johnny World’ Hennigan’s 19/5 odds on Tiger Woods back in the day. The 2-year bet saw Greenstein pocket $100,000 when Woods went on a heater, and then another $100k when a dismayed hennigan asked to buy-out.

'Every event Tiger was in was torture for John,” explained Greenstein. “He was playing $100-$200 Limit Hold’em at the time and was telling me how he knew whatever he made each week wasn’t enough to pay me.”

Best Poker Player Prop Bets

Ice, ice baby!

Another, perhaps apocryphal, golfing prop bet involved our old friend Amarillo Slim. His $40,000 offer to fellow Country Club members were met with laughter, Slim claiming he could drive a golf ball over one mile from a regulation tee with a normal club.

Finding himself with plenty of takers, Slim promptly drove to a nearby frozen lake and smacked the ball into the vast icy distance, much to the horror of the ‘fish’ he’d lured in! A mile and a half later he was $40k richer.

Not all prop bets have to involve money, of course – although among poker players and gamblers it usually does.

Kara Scott’s prop bet with PartyPoker’s Chris Tessaro didn’t – and much to the delight of Chris and the general public she lost.

As Chris explained it:

'A couple of years ago, Kara was playing some excellent poker, and she was looking forward to an upcoming event, an event in which she felt she would do well. I decided to make her a little wager.'

Best Poker Prop Bets Odds

Kara’s impressive rabbit

'If Kara could simply cash in the event, I would appear on television wearing a bunny suit. Yes, a fuzzy bunny suit. If she missed cashing, then SHE had to do a TV appearance in the bunny suit.”

He added sheepishly:

'I must admit, I was simply thrilled when she missed the money. I know, I’m a bad human for that. Kara, on the other hand, is an honorable loser, and she did indeed don the aforementioned bunny suit on television. It was, quite simply, a magic moment. And that is why we prop bet….”

Top Poker Prop Bets

So there we have it folks – the best of the rest as they say. What’s your own favourite prop bet story? Share it below in the comments section!