Phil Hellmuth's Aria Jackpot Challenge: Can He Beat the Odds?

Phil Hellmuth has taken on a significant challenge: showing a profit over 50 Super High Roller (SHR) tournaments at the Aria casino. The 15-time WSOP bracelet winner has accepted odds of 2-1, with a $400k payoff if he wins. This bet, however, is far from easy, given the caliber of competition he will face.

Hellmuth only has to show $1 profit to win his prop bet with Daniel Negreanu, and there is no time limit for him to complete the 50-event challenge. Currently, Hellmuth stands in 31st place on the Aria’s all-time money-winners list, with $2,778,435 in cashes. This places him one spot ahead of Alex Foxen and one behind Matthias Eibinger. However, looking at some of the names ahead of him, the challenge becomes even more daunting. Names like Sean Winter, Koray Aldemir, Ali Imsirovic, Conor Drinan, and Adrian Mateos are all ahead of Phil and not even in the top 20. Ike Haxton, Erik Seidel, Jason Koon, and Bryn Kenney are not even in the top 10. And Daniel Negreanu himself sits on $4,159,180 of Aria cashes in 19th place.

Negreanu tweeted out, questioning Hellmuth's ability to compete in high-stakes tournaments, listing the four big cashes that Phil does have on his resume. However, as DNegs stated: “Not a single cash in the modern era of high stakes tourneys. Not one. Phil is decent in low and mid stakes tournaments, but on the major league high roller circuit, he cannot win. He may have been a GOAT of his era, but that era is long gone.”