Brian Rast Challenges Sheldon Adelson to $2m Poker Match

Pete - Sunday, September 11, 2016, Written by- Sunday, September 11, 2016, Online poker

Once again Sheldon Adelson, the multi-billionaire owner of the The Las Vegas Sands Corporation has been denouncing poker as "not a game of skill" in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance Canada - and high rolling poker star Brian Rast has taken to twitter asking Adelson to put his money where his mouth is - offering him a $2m wager as to the result of a heads-up match between them.

The article is predominantly centred around the increasingly popular Daily Fantasy Sports and Adelson's standpoint that it is gambling and not a game of skill, and that it "exploits poor people". When discussing why he believes it is gambling rather than skill based Adelson compares DFS to poker saying;

"Some say poker is not gambling. Poker is gambling. They say poker is a game of skill. I don’t know how skill can apply to somebody shuffling a deck of cards and randomly giving them out to you. You don’t have any control over it. Can somebody bluff and can somebody place bets better than somebody else? Yes. But that doesn’t make poker a game of skill."

Considering Adelson has become one of the richest men in the world (current net worth accoriding to Forbes is $30.7bn) in no small part due to his success is persuading punters to part with their hard earned cash at one of his casinos, it seems slightly incongruous that he is against something he considers gambling. Adelson justifies his position saying:

"Anyone can get addicted to it. You could do it in the bathroom, you could do it in your kitchen, you could do it anywhere, privately or publicly", and "The biggest victims of Internet gambling, and these fantasy sports that people can access from their cellphones, are children, college students of age, and poor and middle class people."

Perhaps, but it's highly debatable that DFS is not a game of skill, and it's certainly debatable that poker isn't - and Lad Vegas based pro Brian Rast is certainly not taking the slur lying down. With almost $18m in live tourney winnings, as well as millions won in online and live cash games, Rast is keen for Adelson to put his money where he mouth was when it comes to judging poker as a non-skilled game tweeting:

Hey Sheldon Adelson, waz up? Poker is a skill game. Don't believe me? You're a billionaire, I'm not close. Let's play HU 4 2 million each. — Brian Rast (@tsarrast) September 10, 2016

In fact Sheldon my man, I'll pay you 500$ 2 play 100bb freeze outs for 2mil, so if poker isn't a skill game u earning and can prove me wrong — Brian Rast (@tsarrast) September 10, 2016

It would certainly be fun to see Adelson lose a few million dollars but we can't see this Octagenarian thorn in online poker's side taking up Brian on this one!