Apart from being a professional poker player, Phil Hellmuth is also known for his unusual appetite for prop betting. He recently won $23,000 off the felt, on a tennis court. Read on for more.

 

Phil Hellmuth prop bet details

At the start of the month, Phil Hellmuth was involved in an interesting prop bet. Unlike the last “athletic prop bet” which he won on a basketball court, the prop bet was on a tennis court.

In the basketball prop bet, Parker Talbot and producer Todd Anderson had bet against Hellmuth making a 3-point basket with no warm-up allowed. After successfully making a 3-pointer on a local basketball court, Hellmuth walked home with $15,000. It would have cost him $1,000 if he had lost the prop bet.

 

Below are the terms of the $23k prop bet

• First and foremost, the event had to be recorded

• Gusto bet against Hellmuth that he could not return a single serve out of 20 on a tennis court.

• Hellmuth was to win $7,000 if he managed to return at least one serve and an additional $16,000 if he won a point in the process.

• On the other hand, he stood to lose $2,000 if he failed.

 

The slow speed serve

Keeping in mind that normal tennis serves can even reach over 120 miles per hour, it would have been practically impossible for an inexperienced player to return the serve, let alone score a point. To that end, the serve was not to exceed 80 miles per hour. Even with the significant speed reduction, it was still a challenge for the poker player.

 

After 7 unfruitful tries, he finally managed to return a serve on the eighth attempt. From the get-go, it was obvious he was going to win the prop bet. He actually came very close in the first few tries. Oblivious of the fact that Hellmuth was better at tennis than he had initially thought, Gusto offered to settle the bet for $3,000 after the 7th try. Well, Hellmuth refused and Gusto had to sweat it through.

 

Coincidentally, he managed to return a serve in the eighth attempt and an unforced error from the pro tennis player saw him earn a point in the process. He posted all the attempts on his twitter page.