Phil Ivey's Five Million Dollar Bracelet Bet

Published on 2009-06-16 08:58:05

According to various people in the poker world, two of the richest poker players in the world agreed to a $5 million dollar World Series of Poker bracelet bet earlier this month.

The two participants in the bet: Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer.

The bet: can Phil Ivey win two or more World Series of Poker bracelets over the next three years?

At stake: five million dollars.

Joe Beevers talks about the bet here.

Apparently the bet was made AFTER Ivey won his first bracelet this year, but before he won his second.

According to Beever's article on The Hendon Mob, if Ivey's second bracelet comes in a WSOPE event, then the bet is a push.

Based on everything that I have heard, if Ivey wins just one more World Series of Poker (Las Vegas) bracelet over the next three years, then he will win the bet. Some people have said that Ivey has to win two PER YEAR over each of the next three years (including 2009), but this isn't the case.

It's hard to imagine that Ivey won't win one more bracelet between now and the end of the 2011 World Series of Poker, especially given his proficiency in smaller non-Hold'em events. A motivated Ivey needing just one more bracelet to bank five million dollars from Howard Lederer? I can't imagine Ivey not winning this bet..

After getting shut out in 2008 and having to pay out a substantial sum of money in bracelet bets, Phil Ivey has gone on a tear in 2009, and is reportedly up millions of dollars in side bets so far this year.

It surely seems like Howard Lederer is destined to lose this bet. It's not all bad for the "Professor" though - he reportedly has a sizable stake in Full Tilt Poker, and a highly motivated Phil Ivey winning every bracelet in sight can only be good for business.

I don't think that the "Professor" is going to lose too much sleep over this bet, especially given the fountains of cash that he rakes in from Full Tilt every year.

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Filed Under: World Series of Poker