These Brothers (305 Pounds and 134 Pounds) Can Win $150,000 If They Are Within 1 Pound Of Each Other On March 26, 2018

PokerNews - When a viewer made an off-hand comment about imagining Twitch-streaming brothers Matt (134 pounds) and Jaime Staples (305 pounds) at the same weight, Bill Perkins quickly offered the brothers a prop bet and they immediately shook hands on the deal.

They were in the Virgin Islands at the time on Perkins’ StreamBoat, broadcasting poker and day-to-day life to poker fans around the world. This was back in March and the Albertan Staples boys have been working hard to turn the $3,000 they put at risk into $150,000.

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This is incredible. 50 to 1 odds that in 1 year, they can be within 1 pound of each other. They started 171 pounds apart, which is crazy for brothers in it’s own right, but to be able to make $75,000 each just for being healthy is astounding. Here are the details:

PokerNews Canada: Can you detail the terms of the prop bet?

Jaime Staples: My brother Matt Staples and I are risking $3,000 to Bill Perkins’ $150,000, so we’re getting 50 to 1. On a specific day, March 26, 2018, we need to be within one pound [of each other]. I believe the time we talked about weighing in was 5 p.m. We’re going to get one official shot on the scale but we can be weighing ourselves up until the time that we do the official weigh-in. So within one pound on that day. No surgery or steroids are allowed. So it has to be natural, if you will.

And their progress:

PNCA: Are you on track? What odds would you lay for yourself now on winning the bet?

JS: We’re on track, yes. We have less than 90 pounds to go. We started with 170 pounds apart. I would put the odds of success at 90 percent right now. The betting markets don’t agree with me, but that’s where I’d put it. We have a really good support system. I have a great trainer in Mike Vacanti who’s going to be spending a lot of time with us, living with us for a bit. I think we’re in a really good spot.

This is literally all I’ve ever wanted. Some crazy prop bet to make me go to the gym and get swole. I find it very hard to put on weight, and I hate going to the gym because it’s a lot easier to sit at home watching baseball than to go lift heavy weights. I know I want to to do it, but it’s so…inconvenient to actually work out. 75k would end all of that for me, that’s for sure. I’d be there before the god damn rooster started crowing if I had to.

PNCA: Is it harder for you to lose weight or Matt to gain weight? Who’s making up the biggest difference?

JS: So 185 is our target. I started at 305. He started at 134. I believe he’s up 35 pounds now, and I’m down 51 pounds. So I have more distance to cover, but then again it is more difficult pound-for-pound to gain weight at his size than it is for me to lose. I say physiologically it’s pretty similar. From a mental perspective though, this is something that I’m the worst at of everything I do, I think. I don’t think it’s a bet to be like can we go an extra 10 minutes of exercising or can we eat 50 less calories a day. It’s really a mental sort of can-you-break-these-lifetime-habits thing. I think I’m taking the worst of it.

Pretty remarkable the 134 pound brother has already gained 35 pounds since March. That’s NUTS. Also Jaime being down 51 pounds in a few months ain’t too shabby either, but he’s going to have to drop a lot more weight than his brother gains in order to win this bet.

I’ve blogged about the guy on the other side of the bet, Bill Perkins, a few times. He’s a billionaire who loves poker, but even more, he loves making prop bets even if he thinks he’s going to lose. He’s big into making bets that will help people improve their lives. Perkins is willing to give these guys $150,000 because “He thought the equity of this bet was well over a million dollars”, meaning Perkins feels the brothers will benefit in life way more than the $75,000 they’ll each profit if they win.

Perkins has also made ridiculous bets for really no reason at all, like betting Dan Bilzerian $600,000 he couldn’t ride his bike from LA to Vegas, he infamously bet Antonio Esfandiari he couldn’t lunge everywhere, making his legs so fucked up he had to pee at a table and get DQ’d from a tournament as a result, and he paid poker player Jeff Gross $550,000 to get this tattoo:

And most recently,

Joey should be a lock for this bet, assuming he can float. Progress looks good so far:

The wild world of prop betting never sleeps.