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To hedge or not to hedge, that is the question sports talk personality Nick Wright, an avid poker player, has answered about what he’s going to do with a potential $2 million sports betting ticket he’s holding onto.
The new co-host of No Gamble, No Future on PokerGO and First Things First on Fox Sports made a $10,000 investment in Las Vegas that could turn into a seven-figure payout. Or, it could end up being worth nothing.
Wright, who has played on NGNF and various other televised poker shows such as the PokerStars Big Game on Tour, has decided he truly belongs on No Gamble, No Future, because he’s making the ultimate gamble on the NBA Playoffs.
Wright appeared earlier this week on the Bill Simmons Podcast to share part of a story he went into further detail with The New York Post about a $10,000 bet he made on a Las Vegas trip in which he attended a boxing fight with Poker Hall of Famer Nick Schulman.
The sports talk personality placed a wager at Aria on the Minnesota Timberwolves winning the NBA Finals. At the time, he received 200/1 odds, meaning he stood to win $2 million if the T-Wolves were to go on and win the NBA title in June.
Minnesota advanced through the first round of the playoffs, defeating the Denver Nuggets in six games in the best-of-seven series. The Wolves then took Game 1 by two points against the favored San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals before dropping Game 2 in a 133-95 blowout.
The teams meet for Game 3 on Friday at 8:30 p.m. CT in the Twin Cities. San Antonio remains the favorite to win the series, and even if Minnesota were to advance to the Western Conference Finals, they’ll likely face the Oklahoma City Thunder, the defending champs and the top overall seed in the NBA Playoffs. Should Minnesota then defeat OKC (or the Los Angeles Lakers), Wright would still need the Wolves to beat the Eastern Conference champs in the NBA Finals, or that ticket will expire worthless.
Wright, a longtime sports talk show host who lost a heads-up poker match to Phil Hellmuth on PokerGO in 2021, placed the bet after the Timberwolves defeated the Nuggets. At the time, the injury status of Anthony Edwards, Minnesota’s superstar shooting guard, was in question.
Edwards, expected by many to miss the series, ended up playing in Game 1, coming off the bench to score 18 points in the victory on 8-13 shooting. The betting odds went down after news broke that Edwards would play against the Spurs. Wright told The Post he noticed the odds dropped to 130/1 and then 90/1 “a few hours later.”
Minnesota, following the Game 1 win, improved to 30/1 odds to win the NBA title. Wright said he was given the option to cash in his ticket for $65,000 for a $55,000 profit. But he told The Post he doesn’t believe in hedging.
The Game 2 loss lowered his potential payout to under $50,000. But he’s still holding onto the ticket, gambling on the Timberwolves, now 40/1 odds, winning the first championship in franchise history.
“I play a lot of real poker,” Wright explained to The New York Post. “I played in “No Gamble No Future” on stream. Bought in for $25K cashed out for $162K. I play all of the mixed games and high-stakes no-limit games. Coolest perks of the job are a lot of the best games in Vegas, these days, are held at private games inside the casino.”
If the Timberwolves don’t win the championship, Wright’s ticket will be worth exactly $0. Wright will make his No Gamble, No Future commentary debut Monday on PokerGO alongside Brent Hanks and Jared Bleznick. He replaces Jeff Platt, who left PokerGO to work for the World Series of Poker (WSOP).