Prop bets have been a part of high-stakes poker from its very beginnings, with players making wagers from push-ups, predicting flop cards on the table, marathon sessions, and lately, very popular weight-loss and body fat prop bets.
A recent one involved poker pro Shaun Deeb and billionaire poker enthusiast Bill Perkins, who bet $1 million for Deeb to reduce his body fat down to 17% by the start of the 2024 World Series of Poker, giving him 10:1 odds.
The bet was initiated in March 2023, and now, almost 11 months later, Perkins proposed an $800,000 buyout to Deeb, which he accepted after a heartfelt discussion with his wife.
Even though the challenge seemed improbable, Deeb’s dedication was evident from the very start. He did his homework beforehand and had a well-thought-out plan in place, something we were missing from a similar prop bet that Perkins had with Doug Polk – a $200,000 bet that Doug Polk lost.
As a true grinder, Deeb had set his eye on the prize, and we expected nothing less from one of the best poker players of his generation. He started the challenge weighting 306 lbs, with a body fat percentage of 45%, as per DEXA scan. It’s important to note that the challenge wasn’t about the final number on the scale, it was all about reducing his body fat. In the next ten and a half months, he managed to bring his weight down to 214 lbs and, more importantly, his body fat to 22 percent. An achievement nothing short of remarkable, as many don’t grasp the sheer difficulty of such a transformation.
Despite accepting the buyout and already being in the best shape of his life, Deeb’s journey isn’t over just yet. He intends to continue with his body fat loss as a personal challenge and to set a positive example for his kids. Deeb also revealed the buyout details so that everyone could settle the myriad of side bets linked to his prop bet with Perkins.
Just to showcase his strategy and adding a bit of humor to his challenge, Deeb had an ace up his sleeve, if the body fat bet came down to the wire. By shaving off his beard and trimming his hair, he could potentially lose about 1 lb of weight, which would mean a 0.5 percent difference in his body fat percentage as measured by a DEXA scan. Not an insignificant difference when $1,000,000 is on the line.
For Deeb, the challenge was never solely about the money, even though the $1,000,000 incentive doesn’t hurt, but about proving to himself, his family, and others that he could overcome a daunting personal challenge.
