Poker is a difficult job and even professionals with sky-high win rates look for other sources of income. They can win a pretty big pot for showing their face in a Hollywood film, TV series, or music video. It's a win-win; the players get their appearance fee and the director gets extra exposure from big poker names.
The thing is, you probably didn't see many of the cameos on this list. In fact, some of them will be surprising, especially Phil Hellmuth's entry (that's number 5 on the list).
Let's start with the first one, which includes more than one well-known player.
1. Antonio Esfandiari in 7 Days to Vegas
7 Days to Vegas is a little like The Hangover, with less edge and no Mike Tyson. It's a comedy from 2019 that was written by a World Poker Tour commentator, Vince Van Patten. He chose to star in the movie too, taking on the lead role of Duke.
Duke is a poker player who plays poker, and bets on just about anything. In the first 15 minutes, they bet on how many donuts a teenager could eat.
We meet Antonio Esfandiari in the final third of the movie, while an insane prop bet is underway. Duke bets his friend a million dollars that he can walk from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 7 days. Word spread about the bet. That apparently attracted Esfandiari to Duke's party bus, which was also the support vehicle for the endurance event.
Antonio was in the back of the bus, playing Texas Holdem with Jennifer Tilly and Phil Laak. They didn't need to act much, as the movie introduces them by their real names. Not an Oscar-worthy performance, but fun to see.
If you want to get friends together for poker, you don't need to book a party bus. Just take a look at which sites offer private online games for you to set up and send out your invite codes. You could be the new host of weekly online cash games or tournaments with your buddies.
2. Barry Greenstein and Sam Farha in Lucky You
The same year that the first season of Poker After Dark was aired, Lucky You was released. The movie follows Huck Cheever, played by Eric Bana, who you might know from Troy or Black Hawk Down.
Anyway, Lucky You is about balancing poker and personal issues. Despite having luck at the tables, Huck Cheever runs into his estranged father in a high-stakes game, who turns out to be a legendary player.
This movie's cast is filled to the brim with poker players, not just Barry Greenstein and Sammy Farha. You'll also catch Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Harman, Jack Binion, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, and fittingly, even Jack Binion. One of the key scenes was filmed in his casino, the Binion’s Horseshoe.
In the scene we show here, the main character loses his car along with the pot. In general, this is one of the more realistic poker movies you'll come across.
3. Negreanu's $17 Million Bad Beat in Katy Perry's Music Video
Most poker pros can say that they've never lost a hand to Katy Perry, except Daniel Negreanu. He suffered a world-class bad beat in her Waking Up in Vegas music video (at 1:16), released in around 2010.
We have to commend Daniel's acting in this scene, which is less than 10 seconds long.
Katy and Daniel appear to be playing a heads-up match, with a commentator and camera crew.
We don't know the preflop action, but it feels like it was a preflop all-in kind of situation. Katy Perry holds (of course), while DNegs has .
The flop is , giving Negreanu an unbeatable four-of-a-kind – or so he thought. The turn is an , followed by the one-outer Katy Perry needed; the .
There was probably a lot going on and they didn't have time to ask Negreanu to make this scene more realistic. Still, it's impressive to see the card graphics on-screen!
Daniel ships a $17.2 million dollar pot to Katy Perry, but thankfully, music video money isn't real.
In freeroll tournaments, the prize money is real – but there's no cost to play. You should check the schedule and see which events are running today.
4. Phil Ivey in the Las Vegas TV Show
This isn't a show that modern poker players would watch, but we bet you didn't know about this Phil Ivey cameo.
Las Vegas was a show from 2003 that was built around the games and glamor of The Strip. The main characters run the Montecito Resort and Casino, making sure everything's going smoothly. In an episode called Decks and Violence, there's a lot of poker action and we see Phil Ivey, along with Chris Ferguson and Phil Gordon.
The scene is a little ridiculous. We see Phil Ivey up against Phil Gordon, without knowing any of the cards. All we know is that Ivey is betting.
Here's the ridiculous part:
From 10 feet away, the casino pit boss claims that Phil Ivey has a flush, but probably, a straight flush. One moment, she was strolling around the tables, and then next, she's putting players on straight flushes. For context, those are expected to happen about one in 72,000 hands.
Somehow, she's able to guess from his head movement and shaky hand that Ivey has made one of the best (and rarest) hands in the game. That's quite a read.
The show never actually lets the viewers see if her guess was right. Our guess? It probably wasn't.
5. Phil Hellmuth in a Ludacris Music Video
This is one cameo you didn't see coming – unless you are a Ludacris or Trey Songz fan. The song is titled Sex Room, which speaks for itself.
Phil Hellmuth is known for being a bit of an entrepreneur, there's no doubt about it. It seems like he stepped out of his usual habitat on this one.
For about 30 seconds, Trey Songs, Ludacris, and friends play with UltimateBet poker chips. Unfortunately, Phil is also wearing UltimateBet merchandise.
Why is that a negative thing? UltimateBet was part of a major scandal from 2005 to 2007, where unauthorized software code was able to show cheaters what cards players had. This music video appears to be from 2010, two years later.
We're so familiar with seeing Phil in the WSOP or other live tournaments – so this was a real surprise. He doesn't show up in the video for very long, but that's probably a good thing. Nothing seems to anger Phil more than losing poker hands to amateurs.
If you saw any poker pro cameos that you think need some attention, leave a comment below!