By Ki

PProposition bets are to sports gamblers and poker players what Kama Sutra is to bored lovers, a rush when traditional methods won’t cut it anymore.  The Super Bowl is an action junkie’s haven given all of the available prop bets (who didn’t love wagering on whether or not the Red Hot Chili Peppers would go shirtless).  A quick perusal of any major online sports betting site such as sportsbook.com or bwin.com right before a major sporting event will lead you to a plethora of interesting prop bets.

Otherwise known as novelty or side bets, prop bets have an inconspicuous way of catching non-gamblers unawares.  Remember that time you challenged your buddy to toss back a shot of Tabasco sauce, or that office wide weight loss competition the obnoxious Cross Fit buff swept?  Another prime example, Seinfeld’s “The Competition” episode; Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer put $20 dollars on who can hold out the longest from self pleasuring.

Food challenges have become a particularly popular form of prop betting.  The milk and Saltine challenges lead the pack in terms of broad recognition but several other worthy contenders maintain the rear.  ADANAI does not recommend trying these but poking fun at those who have never hurt anybody (thank you YouTube).

Formulate a better understanding of a few of the garden variety and more obscure challenges and then see if you’re ready to handle the realm of the ultimate gamblers: high stakes poker players.

Food challenges

Saltine
The everyman’s prop bet.  Eat six Saltine crackers in 60 seconds with no water. Easy right? If you are looking for a fun activity while on a road trip, long flight or just hanging around with some friends, try the Saltine Challenge.  It is simple, inexpensive and unlikely to cause any permanent damage.  Just be sure to have a dust buster handy, as there is a 100% chance there will be Saltine dust all over the floor.  Oh and if you are gambling on this, be sure to bet on not completing the challenge – unless the contestant has some sort of over active salivary gland disease you will easily win (and get a ton of laughs).

Cinnamon (WARNING! Risk of choking, aspiration of cinnamon into the lungs and pulmonary damage.)
Digest one tablespoon of cinnamon in 60 seconds. Cinnamon has a ton of great health properties but save it for Mom’s carrot cake recipe.  Words can’t do this justice:

Milk challenge
Drink one gallon of milk in one hour and keep it down for at least an hour thereafter.  This is easy money. Most people grew up drinking milk and associate it with good things.  No negative connotation in a cold glass of milk with warm cookies.  Therefore, most people like to believe they have the wherewithal to endure 128 ounces – equal to 16 cups or eight 16oz. Diet Coke bottles – of the drink everyone loved as a child.

Unless you’re Kobayashi, count on one of two outcomes. Throwing up or giving up, before you start throwing up.  There are all sorts of scientific explanations across the web as to why this is next to impossible but the one that resonates the most here is that the milk can’t digest fast enough.  With all of that extra time, your stomach acids make the milk curdle.  The body immediately moves into “remove bad things” mode and vomiting is the most efficient means of expulsion.

Peeps

Eat 24 Peeps in five minutes and see if you don’t wind up like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man after the Ghostbusters cross streams.  Disgusting but not impossible, the right sugar tooth and technique might be enough to pull this feat off.  Seasons play a factor in this one. Good luck finding Peeps outside of the Easter window.

Sprite and banana
Two bananas, one liter of Sprite; the setup for a freaky food fetish video?  Nope.  This challenge requires participants to eat the bananas in their entirety and then drink the Sprite.  Something about the order induces the vast majority of idiots daredevils to throw up.  Don’t try this indoors but if you are taking part, be the one betting against success.

Poker players take it to the next level                                                 

When a bunch of professional gamblers sit around a poker table for long stretches, funny antics ensue.  Here are a few of the best crazy prop bets from the heavy hitters:

Phil Ivey, the vegetarian
Poker pro Phil Ivey clearly enjoys his meat.  When fellow high stakes ace Tom Dwan bet him $1 million that he couldn’t go one year on a strict vegetarian diet, he caved after only three weeks.  Dwan collected a $150,000 buy out, but that’s chump change considering $675,000 bluffs during hands between the two of them aren’t unheard of.

30-days of quail
As a young gambler, Doyle Brunson accepted an offer to eat one fresh wild quail a day for 30 days.  He could eat whatever he wanted but it had to include at least one fresh wild quail a day.  He made it past the halfway mark, but 17 days in, he quailed, forfeiting his $20,000 prize.

Brunson claimed the richness and gaminess of the meat made it an impossible endeavor.  By day 17 the quail “looked the size of a turkey.”  Funny side note: prop bet master Phil Laak tried this bet with poker pro, Lee Mershon, after hearing Brunson tell the story.  However,  he did not specify that the quail couldn’t be frozen.  Lee Mershon ordered 30 frozen quails and completed the one quail a day for 30 days challenge easily, winning $10,000.

The quail challenge has even deeper roots in the poker world. Mt. Rushmore of poker member Amarillo Slim pulled a scam in cahoots with casino king Benny Binion using the quail challenge.  Binion had a series of suckers who were willing to wager that the challenge couldn’t be completed.  Binion tasked Slim to figure out a way to do what he knew how to do best – beat the game.  Slim found a set of identical twins to take on the challenge – each doing alternating three-day quail shifts over the 30 days.  They took countless numbers of high stakes gamblers for countless amounts of dollars.

Living in a Bellagio hotel room bathroom for a month
During a high stakes poker game at the Bellagio, several young guns agreed they could see themselves remaining on the Bellagio premises for an entire month. Seeing an opportunity, No Limit Hold’em rising star Andrew Robl bet Jay Kwik that Kwik couldn’t live in the bathroom of his Bellagio hotel room for 30 days.  With the help of a 12” television and room service, Kwik was able to get it done.

Thin Man, Ted Forrest
This one was so good they did it twice.  The first instance required a 250 lb. Mike Matusow to lose 70 lbs. in one year. Matusow succeeded and won 100 racks, $100,000.  Years later, he turned the tables on five time bracelet winner Ted Forrest after hearing him remark that he felt bloated.

Forrest weighed 188 lbs. at the time, by no means an outrageous number.  He had an athletic build.  Matusow bet Forrest he couldn’t drop below 140 lbs. in only a few months.  Confident Forrest stood no chance, Matusow laid some serious odds in Forrest’s favor.  Forrest stood to gain $2 million dollars, but only to lose $150,000 dollars.  A combination of dieting, working out and fasting made Forrest a rich man. Suffice it to say, Matusow hung up his prop hat after his net worth shrunk along with Forrest’s waist size.

Ashton Griffin runs 70 miles in 24 hours on a treadmill
Haseeb Qureshi who once went by DOGISHEAD online, bet Ashton Griffin $300,000 at 3-1 odds (meaning Griffin stood to lose $900,000 if he couldn’t finish) that Griffin couldn’t log 70 miles on a treadmill in a 24 hour period. A high school long distance runner and collegiate wrestler, Griffin completed seven 10-mile runs in 23 hours and 15 minutes and took home $300,000.  The bet brought up several moral debates around the idea of betting someone to essentially put their life at risk.

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