Prop bets and poker go together like peanut butter and jelly but rarely are the stakes borderline torture.
Yet that is the case for a prop bet currently underway between American poker pro Rich Alati and his friend, Australian pro Rory Young. The bet the pair have goes like this: if Alati can stay in a pitch-black Las Vegas bathroom, alone, for 30 days straight he’ll get $100,000 from Young.
“The conditions are complete darkness, so no electronics, no light-emitting devices, no drugs of any kind,” Young told poker news site PocketFives. “He is allowed any type of food that he wants. He has a bed in there, he has a shower and a bathtub. He has pretty lavish toiletries like Epsom salts, sugar scrubs, that kind of stuff.
“Food is delivered every three to six days and we’ve randomized what days it’ll be delivered and we’ll drop off six days worth of food so he doesn’t know how long it’s been,” Young continued. “It could be three days, it could be six days. He’ll have no idea of how long it’s been, so no watches or clocks or things like that.”
Making things even worse, Young revealed that Alati did next to no preparation before locking himself in the bathroom.
“He spent, I believe, 10 minutes in a dark bathroom,” said Young. “He hadn’t prepared any of his food, he hadn’t gotten anyone to bring his food in, so I’ve had to do it. I think he’s done zero preparation.”
Despite the fact that he’s directly responsible for, in essence, torturing one of his friends, Young is amazingly blasé about what Altai has gotten himself into.
“I’m a firm believer in that there are two consenting adults and if it doesn’t do any harm to a third party, then it’s morally justifiable,” said Young. “I don’t have any hangups about the ethical side of this.”
While Alati is locked in his pseudo-prison cell, five night-vision cameras are monitoring him to make sure that he’s safe which is a very good thing because a lack of sunlight can seriously mess with human physiology. In the worst case scenario, it can even be deadly.
According to Slate:
The most plausible deadly scenario is that a lack of sunlight could prevent the body from producing vitamin D, which, in turn, would inhibit calcium absorption. Very low calcium levels might lead to spasms of the larynx, causing suffocation. A proper diet, however, can easily stave off this unlikely chain of events and other health consequences, even if you live in a bunker. Vitamin D is present in egg yolks, cheese, fatty fish, and fortified milk, juice, and cereal.
Just because Alati’s body will in all likelihood be fine following 30 days in the dark, his mind might not fare so well. Sunlight is the primary trigger for the brain’s daily cycle of chemicals including serotonin, which helps regulate sleep, moods, and emotional well-being. By taking away sunlight, Alati’s brain will not release the regular amount of serotonin which means that when he leaves the dark room he will, in all likelihood, be suffering from both extreme sleep deprivation and depression.
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