Is Nik Airball broke? That’s the question being asked after the Hustler Casino Live regular admitted to having lost a staggering $8,000,000 on the show in his latest interview.
“It depends how you look at it but I’d say around $8million,” was Airball’s answer when quizzed by HCL co-founder Nick Vertucci about his downswing.
As downswings go, that’s a monster and starting to reach the territory of almost mythical losses. Guy Laliberte’s $33million online losses and Gus Hansen’s $20million downswing come to mind.
“It sounds really bad, but the games have been really big … it’s not as crazy as it sounds,” says Nik Airball, recalling recent $1k/$2k PLO games.
Though admitting he doesn’t have a $20-$30million bankroll, he claims to have felt more emotional pain from the losses than financial.
“It hasn’t been as fun to play when it’s just everyday getting your head smashed in…feeling like you’re never going to win,” says Nik, who started his HCL career with almost a year of wins.
More recently, however, he has spewed seven-figure sessions like confetti, with rare wins barely softening the blow.
Ethan “Rampage” Yau – in the news himself this week for allegedly multi-accounting – took more than $300k off Airball. That was followed by Nik walking off with just fumes of his full buy-in to the Hustler $Million cash game – a $997,000 punch in the face.
And it hasn’t just been purely HCL run-bad for Airball. A cool $1,029,700 went to Matt Berkey in their heads-up Grudge Match, over just 9 sessions and 59 hours of $200/$400 ($400) NLH play.
The losses appear to have forced former investment banker Airball to tighten up his play as well as his purse-strings, admitting there’s “no more going for big bluffs with dusty hands!”
The punting never stopped…@nikairball goes for the $16K0K river bluff but Stanley Choi is a non-believer
$405K pot!!! What an epic hero call!!! pic.twitter.com/vgi6RoN20L
— Hustler Casino Live (@HCLPokerShow) March 18, 2023
While $8,000,000 is a lot of money, at least HCL’s best-known reg has an income of sorts, with hints of a $100k appearance fee per show now jokingly doubled…
Next time please just pay me my appearance fee on the side, I don’t want everyone to know you now pay me $190,500 per show… https://t.co/EBwYRhmI08
— Nik Airball (@nikairball) September 9, 2023
What do you think about Nik Airball’s monster downswing? Busto soon or just a drop in the ocean? Let us know on our social media channels!
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