A New Zealand man this week successfully hit his social media challenge target of a million dollars, after betting one cent for every follower on a single hand of blackjack each day for 83 days.
Tim Myers, known online as Tim Naki, started the challenge in February with a $1,500 bet matching his 150,000 followers at the time. This week, he reached 1.1 million followers, and also hit his goal of winning a million dollars at blackjack.
The winning bet, placed at an online live casino, was $110,000, from which he won $230,000.
The former farmer from a rural village on New Zealand’s North Island has become a social media star via his online gambling exploits. During the 83-day challenge, he also took a visit to Las Vegas, where he gambled his daily blackjack hand in-person.
Challenge Over
Myers completed his viral blackjack challenge recently with a $110,000 bet on an Evolution live blackjack table.
The resulting $230,000 win took him to a challenge tally of $1.088 million. The winning hand was a Queen of Spades and a 10 of Spades vs. a King of Hearts and 8 of Clubs. The Instagram post documenting the winning bet has some 289,000 likes as of this writing.
The win wasn’t the biggest of his run, however. On May 3, day 80 of the challenge, Myers hit a blackjack with a King of Hearts and Ace of Spades for a $270,000 windfall.
Between day 70 and 74 of the challenge, Myers visited Las Vegas. He did most of his high-stakes blackjack wagers at Red Rock Casino, just off the Las Vegas Strip.
He almost hit the $1 million mark with a $110,000 bet on May 1, but lost that time. However, that didn’t put him off, and he successfully came back for more a week later.
Dumb Luck
“People ask me what’s the secret? I can’t tell you the secret. The cards come out as the cards come out. You can know how to play blackjack, like what’s the best way to play statistically, but it’s just dumb luck.”
Despite his sucessful $1 million challenge and rise to fame, Myers remained cautionary about the chances of going on a run like he did.
“It’s not a rational or logical path that anybody should try and replicate. I’m definitely an anomaly,” he said on New Zealand-based podcast What A Lad.
The worlds of gambling and social media have collided in an unprecedented way over the past decade, leading to all kinds of crazy challenges like this (plus plenty of bankruptcies and controversies.) For another recent example, here’s this poker YouTuber who plans on staking his entire yearly earnings on one roulette spin at a Las Vegas casino.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
