Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow Twitter Battle Over Prop Bet Payout

An almost unrecognizable Ted Forrest (left) back in 2010, after reaching 138 lbs. for his weight loss prop bet with Mike Matusow. (Image: PokerPortal.sc)

Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow and other top-tier poker pros are considered big name players, for sure: perhaps not on the level of a Daniel Negreanu or a Phil Ivey, but certainly in the public eye nonetheless. Even many casual fans who wouldn’t otherwise have heard of either player know the two names because of their involvement in a rather infamous prop bet that received a lot of media coverage back in 2010.

Four years ago, Forrest and Matusow made a $2 million prop bet over whether or not Forrest could get down to a weight of 139 pounds from a starting weight of over 180 pounds. It seemed like an outrageous bet (especially to Matusow), as Forrest didn’t appear to be particularly overweight at his initial weight, and at a height of around six feet, many saw that goal as unrealistic. Others pointed out that while it was low, a weight of around 140 would still be considered in the normal range for Forrest’s height, making it possible, if difficult.

Forrest Loses Weight to Win Millions

The bet stipulated that if Forrest could lose the weight by July 15, he’d win the full $2 million; if he could do it by September 24 of the same year, he’d win $1 million. If he failed to meet either deadline, he would owe Matusow $150,000. Sure enough, on July 13, Matusow reported that Forrest weighed just 138 pounds, thus winning the $2 million bet.

Of course, that was a lot of money to Matusow, who didn’t exactly have $2 million sitting around to pay out large prop bets. Instead, an agreement was apparently reached in which Matusow would pay Forrest $5,000 a month until the entire bet was paid out. If Matusow had kept to that schedule, he would have paid out around $250,000 by now.

Twitter War Highlights Fight Over Payment

But Forrest took to Twitter last week to announce that Matusow had only paid off about $70,500 of the total bet. That was the first of several tweets on the subject, with Forrest repeatedly calling out Matusow over the unpaid bet.

“I weight 180 but I’m light about 1.7 million,” Forrest tweeted. “Please I am asking you Mike make some type of good faith effort to do the right thing.”

Forrest went on to retweet comments from Matusow about scores he had made, perhaps suggesting that the money was there if Matusow was willing to pay it. The barrage went on for days before Matusow was finally able to fire back early on Wednesday morning.

“I just got back on twitter to see all this Ted Forrest bullshit, in defense of myself I must tell the real truth,” Matusow tweeted from his account.

Matusow Claims He Never Wanted Bet

In his telling of events, Matusow made the bet while drunk, then told Forrest that he didn’t want to take the bet, as he couldn’t afford it if he lost. Matusow claims that Forrest asked for $500,000 to cancel the bet, which he then refused.

Matusow apparently believed he could make the monthly payments out of his Full Tilt paychecks. Unfortunately for “The Mouth,” that was a revenue stream that was about to dry up.

“And you all know full tilt stole mine and everyone’s money and I’ve struggled to survive since,” Matusow tweeted.

While it was clear the two sides weren’t going to reach a resolution any time soon, Matusow did offer one last way for Forrest to try and recover his funds.

“P.s. ted if you want your 5k a month cll Howard lederer I’m sure he will give it to you,” Matusow wrote, once again invoking the specter of the Full Tilt Poker shutdown after Black Friday.

Related posts:

Michael Borovetz Admits to Running Scams at McCarran Airport Johannes Strassmann Autopsy Finds Drugs in System Phuas Remain in ICE Custody After Phil Ivey Bail Attempt Paul Phua Pleads Not Guilty to Gambling Charges