February 7, 2021 Poker News, Featured Articles Petr Černý

Rob Yong loses $1,000,000 by betting on Daniel Negreanu in High Stakes Feud prop bet

If you thought Doug Polk and Daniel Negrenau were the only winners and losers in their recently-finished Grudge Match, then think again! Casino boss Rob Yong reportedly lost $1.25million and there were plenty of others in a similar boat.

Rob Yong’s huge bet

The highstakes feud, the finale of which you can watch here if you missed it, saw Upswing Poker boss Polk win $1.2million from Negreanu from 25,000 hands of $200/$400 HUNL.

Rob Yong loses $1,000,000 by betting on Daniel Negreanu in High Stakes Feud prop bet

Rob Yong, the owner of the Dusk Till Dawn Casino in England, and himself a highstakes cash game player didn’t mention how much he’d lost on his bet when he congratulated the players…

However, a bit of simple arithmetic on his widely-publicised sidebet on the match does the trick – and it proved to be an expensive last week of the challenge for Rob Yong.

Rob Yong loses $1,000,000 by betting on Daniel Negreanu in High Stakes Feud prop bet

Yong had agreed to pay (or be paid) 2.5 x whatever sum Polk won or lost, starting from $700,000. That meant the final session this week, in which Polk won $250k and crossed the magic $1million mark, plunged him an extra $625k into the red.

“The worst thing about this bet I had, I bet against the online pros with all their data and their analysis,” Yong revealed on Joey Ingram’s YouTube show.

“I hate paying them!” added Yong, who thought the $700,000 ‘headstart’ was a decent sum.

His revelations came on the day Negreanu lost almost $300k, plunging from that magic $700k bet starting point to $1million down. Polk admitted afterward it was his “luckiest day of the challenge.”

Not lucky for Yong though as he effectively lost $750k that day, the Englishman betting on Negreanu because of “nostalgia” as well as the thought that “getting a $700,000 start was a step in the right direction.”

It turns out his bet may have been even more complicated, a similar but messier cross-bet back in November costing him another chunk of his fortune…

Mike “Bank of Timex” McDonald, who founded the PokerShares betting platform, had explained the betting patterns just as the Grudge Match was about to kick off in November last year.

Mike McDonald poker

Mike was taking all sorts of bets on the match, such as the possibility of ex-President Donald Trump and Negreanu both winning, as we revealed here.

“Generally the guys betting on Doug have never played live, and the guys betting on Daniel have never played online!” explained McDonald.

He added: “It’s an interesting dynamic where I think online players tend to estimate Daniel, and live players tend to underestimate Doug.”

Hellmuth and Matusow also lose big

That brings us to two other poker legends, both of whom lost a pretty penny on Negreanu, and who fit McDonald’s description perfectly – Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow.

Phil Hellmuth

“Poker brat” Hellmuth bet Doug Polk $20k that Negreanu would beat him…

…while Mike “The Mouth” Matusow bet half of his entire ‘bankroll’ on Negreanu, though that bankroll seemed to include money for food and bills.