News

Too much body fat: Doug Polk bets $200k on his fitness

Too much body fat: Doug Polk bets $200k on his fitness
Image
Arved Klöhn Content Writer
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: November 1, 2024 · 2 minutes to read

Businessman and poker player Bill Perkins has made a bet with Doug Polk. The two have wagered a six-figure sum that Doug Polk will lose half his body fat within a year.

Doug Polk is one of the most successful heads-up poker players, has a popular poker VLOG and his own training site (UpswingPoker). On top of that, Doug Polk seems to be slightly vain. After a DXA scan, he concluded that his body fat percentage was too high and publicly sought motivation to improve his fitness level.

He advertised that he wanted to reduce his body fat percentage by a third within a year. Via Twitter, he asked if anyone wanted to bet against him:

It didn’t take long before Bill Perkins emerged. No one was surprised, because Perkins had already given the poker world crazy prop bets in the past. He had even made a similar bet with the Staples brothers. The bet back then was that the brothers had to have the same weight within a year. In the case of Jamie Staples, this would mean a drastic reduction in weight, in the case of his brother Matt, his increase in mass. At the time, Perkins offered $150,000 at 50:1 odds against the brothers’ $3,000. The two had a weight difference of around 80 kilograms (176 lbs) and it seemed like a good bet. The Staples brothers won the bet and collected the six-figure sum.

Jamie and Matt Staples: Drastic change in a year thanks to a bet with Bill Perkins
Jamie and Matt Staples: Drastic change in a year thanks to a bet with Bill Perkins

Polk’s bet in detail

In Polk’s case, Perkins bets against Polk to reduce his body fat percentage to half the current value. The DXA scan showed Polk to have 27.7 % body fat. This means that at the beginning of February next year, this value may not exceed 13.85 %. The bet is for 200,000 dollars.

The bet is about body fat. Therefore, losing weight is not necessarily the goal. Building muscle will play a much bigger role if Polk wants to reach that number. To win this bet, Polk enlists the help of a team consisting of a personal chef, a personal trainer and a nutritionist. With a good amount of work, it is realistic that Polk will actually win this bet. His goal is to have roughly this figure in a year’s time:

This is what 12% body fat looks like (via legionathletics.com)
This is what 12% body fat looks like (via legionathletics.com)
Recommended