- Dan Bilzerian accepts US$1.2million wager from high stakes poker player Bill Perkins to cycle from Los Angeles to Las Vegas within 48 hours
- Ladbrokes Australia creates unique betting opportunity for legendary race
- Bilzerian opens as $1.75 favourite to win the wager
Dan Bilzerian and fellow high-stakes poker player Bill Perkins have settled on a handsome cycling bet worth US$1.2 million, but if you are yet to hear the details it is most certainly not what you are thinking.
If Bilzerian can ride a pushbike from his home in Los Angeles to Las Vegas in under 48 hours, he will take the $1.2 million pot, while Perkins will clean up should he fail to complete the journey within the allotted time.
This is simply too good of an event not to get involved in, and given Bilzerian’s proven success in similar endeavours, Ladbrokes.com.au has just opened its books and installed Bilzerian as a AU$1.75 favourite to successfully complete the ride.
Well-known as one of the world’s wildest party animals, it may come as a shock to many that Bilzerian is actually a pretty well established poker player. Large inheritance aside, something had to be bankrolling his week-long shindigs after all.
In between sessions at the shooting range and posing for some of the more ridiculous Instagram posts that have ever appeared online, Bilzerian has made a notable impact on the poker community highlighted by several appearances during the 2009 World Series Of Poker Main Event television broadcast.
Clearly a big fan of gambling in any and every capacity, Bilzerian once raced Supreme Court Litigator Tom Goldstein at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a wager worth US$385,000, but he has undoubtedly reached a new height in impressive wagers this week.
The more information that surfaces about this latest cycling bet, the better it gets. Firstly, Bilzerian claims to have not placed a foot on a pedal for more than 18 years prior to agreeing to the bet.
From the plethora of social media he posts every day Bilzerian is clearly a fit man, but his course will involve more than 300 miles (482km) over everything from steep hill climbs to general Mojave Desert conditions.
There is also a reasonably close deadline that has to be met. Bilzerian has to arrive in Las Vegas no later than March 31st this year, so already there is only a couple of weeks in which he has to hit the road to get some practice in.
The best part of this bet is undoubtedly the emergence of Lance Armstrong as Bilzerian’s mentor and cycling coach for this race against time and the pair have already kicked into a heavy workload.
This is by no means the biggest unique bet Bilzerian has entered into on a whim – the Wall Street Journal reported that he once flipped a coin for a pile of chips worth around US $2.3 million, but the sheer number of idiosyncrasies involved in this undoubtedly make it his best work to date.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your peddles and place your bets, this race is just starting to gear up.