Tennis Prop Bet Gives “Poker Brat” A Payout Of $23,000

Phil Hellmuth’s skills and abilities are not confined to the poker table — the 15-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion has successfully proven he can also make it on the tennis court.

Hellmuth, a “rank amateur” tennis player announced that he has won a prop bet which made him $23,000 richer.

Under the terms of the bet, Hellmuth had to return at least 1 serve within 20 attempts against a professional tennis player. To make things more exciting, the speed of the serve must be 80 mph – much like hitting the ball in slow motion.

Returning one serve would be worth $7000 for the poker pro, while he would net an extra $16,000 for scoring a point against an unnamed professional player.

Hellmuth documented his performance through a series of videos he posted on social media. It wasn’t an easy task for the poker pro, as can be seen during the first two serves when his racket could hardly touch the ball. He could have backed out of the game and take home $3000, but the “Poker Brat” refused to give up.

It didn’t take long before Hellmuth found his groove – a video documentation showed the poker pro slaying many of the serves.

Moment of Truth

It was during his eighth attempt, when he returned the serve successfully and scored a point within the 80 mph speed limit to win the full $23,000. Hellmuth then shared his triumph on Twitter showing a video of the kill shot which he captioned “the moment of truth”.

The moment of truth: my $23,000 return of serve, and point! [First we discuss running it back] $7,000 I couldn’t return 1-in-20 80 MPH serves from a pro + $16,000-to-my-$2,000 I couldn’t score a point..Hello $23,000! #SlopCounts #Lucky #UnForcedErrorCounts #GoingWClutchShot pic.twitter.com/PiOlRCSXLw

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) December 6, 2018

Hellmuth’s confidence to win the bet could have played an important role in the outcome. The poker pro took on the challenge with his own crew betting against him. When he posted the terms of the bet on his Twitter account, commenters were not very confident he would come out on top.

Basketball Prop Bet with Doug Polk

Prop bets of this kind are not new to Hellmuth. Last year, he netted $10,000 by taking part in a basketball challenge against fellow poker pro Doug Polk. The condition was that he should score a three-pointer on the basketball court.

Hellmuth, a long-time basketball fan and avid follower of the Golden State Warriors, scored a three-point shot, in front of an audience of poker professionals, including Olivier Bisque and Shaun Deeb.

Hellmuth who has over $22.8 million in career prize money hasn’t won a lot at the poker table in the last few months but it just goes to show that poker players have multiple ways of bringing in the cash and one of them is taking crazy prop bets.