The biggest bracelet bets ever
In a week where Vanessa Selbst has bet $2 million on a bracelet bet, we look back at some of the most lucrative WSOP prop bets.
Hastings doubles his winnings
Every year someone wins two bracelets at the WSOP and last year Brian Hastings was one of those people. When he took down Event#27 for $239,518, he is rumoured to have more than doubled that prize in bracelet bets.
He is said to have made a number of bets against the likes of Tony Gregg, Dan Smith and Jason Mercier, and this win is estimated to have netted him around $480,000 overall (Including the tournament prize itself).
Unfortunately for Hastings, his victories were marred by revelations he had been multi-accounting online at high stakes Mixed Games, which given the fact that his bracelet wins were in Stud and Ten-Game Mixed, seemed to have a significant influence on the odds he may have gotten for his prop bet.
Ivey vs Negreanu
Two of the biggest names in poker have a long standing bet where they both simply pay each other $200,000 whenever the other one wins a bracelet. There are no odds involved, paying the other man six-figures is an inevitability, the aim is to make sure he pays you more than you pay him.
With Ivey's ten bracelets to Negreanu's six, it looks like KidPoker has been on the worst end of it so far, however in 2014 he decided to flip the script and put Ivey's talents to his advantage.
Ivey joins Negreanu
Confident in he and his friend's ability, and presumably sick of paying his friend $200,000 most summers, Negreanu decided to make an open bet to the poker world in 2014.
He wagered that either him or Phil Ivey would capture at least one bracelet that year, and would give anyone who had as little as $5,000 or as much as $1 million even money odds.
The amount of money booked is not known, but it was said to be substantial. Negreanu came close twice, coming second in two events that year, but his buddy Ivey spared his wallet and his blushes by taking down his 10th career bracelet that series, to win KidPoker the bet.
Justin Bonomo’s Panorama Towers bet
A different spin on the bracelet bet came from Justin Bonomo's bet on an entire building. In 2009 and 2010 he laid odds of 10-to-1 that at least one resident of the Panorama Towers hotel would win a bracelet that year. The hotel is a hub for professional poker players, and included both players who lived there, were staying there during the series or even crashing on a friend's couch.
Of course he was betting on some of the best players in the world to win a bracelet, but with only around 60 events each year he still had plenty to be concerned about. He was laying very dangerous odds, with a minimum bet of $1,000 to his $10,000.
It was a good bet each year, however, in 2009 Greg Mueller won two bracelets and in 2010 David Baker won one - both residents of the hotel.
Tom Dwan almost breaks Vegas
Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan is not known as a tournament player, but the lure of the bracelet bet sparked his interest and he booked lot of action. Pretty much everyone in the high stakes community bet against Dwan winning a bracelet, giving him around 3-to-1 odds. Some people also made separate bets against him winning two bracelets in three years.
Nobody will know the exact monetary amounts involved, but they were speculated to have been around $9-20 million if Dwan had won. Mike Matusow had $30,000 riding on it, Eli Elezra $750,000, Phil Ivey $3 million and Howard Lederer was also said to have a large amount wagered.
So when Dwan found himself heads-up for a bracelet in Event #11, the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event, Vegas got scared. Dwan was facing Simon Watt, an accomplished player from New Zealand who had previously won a big regional event, the ANZPT, for $200k.
It would be Watt who prevailed in the event, notching his place in his history books as winning $614,248, but perhaps should be better known as the man that denied Tom Dwan a multi-million prize and kept the Las Vegas poker economy afloat.
Phil Ivey breaks Vegas
The man who has perhaps taken the most money from bracelet bets is also probably the man who has taken the most money from other poker players in general – Phil Ivey.
The biggest single wager he is rumoured to have made on bracelets was with Howard Lederer, a two-year bet between 2010 and 2011 that Ivey couldn’t win two bracelets. The bet was reported to be worth $5 million to each man. Ivey won a bracelet in 2010, but didn’t in 2011 because he chose not to play the WSOP after Black Friday, so he lost that bet.
It may have been his biggest single bet but his biggest year for bracelet bets came in 2009, when he won two bracelets prior to the Main Event. The amount he won in bracelet bets from that one event is unknown, but Eli Elezra revealed he alone lost $400,000 (“It’s like betting against God” Elezra declared) to Ivey and we know Daniel Negreanu would have also paid out $400,000.
Ivey was not done yet, and gave the high stakes community a real scare by making the November Nine, all the while booking more bracelet bets. One of the best documented bets of which was with Andy Bloch, who with 2,500 players left in the event offered Ivey odds of 99-to-1. Luckily for the high stakes community it would not be Ivey’s day at the final table, as he exited early in 7th position.
Did we miss a classic bracelet bet? Let us know in the comments.
