It didn't work out last year
Kevin Martin - a familiar name to many poker viewers and fans. The GG team member and well-known streamer came to the attention of the general public last year after he announced an extreme bankroll challenge. The goal was to start from absolutely nothing and gradually build a $5,000 bankroll, all under the watchful eye of the cameras 24/7. In fact, he streamed the entire challenge nonstop live on his Twitch, with the camera running even when he was eating, sleeping or taking a shower.
This extreme regime lasted Kevin three weeks, when after 500 hours of streaming he decided to end the challenge early. He failed to meet his goal amount, his bankroll stopped at $500, which he then donated to one of his subscribers. In one respect this was a huge success and that was his streaming stats. In fact, he had 1.6 million views of all his videos on YouTube that month and gained nearly 17,000 new subscribers there. He also gained nearly 5,000 new subscribers on Twitch and logged 305,954 watched hours on that platform during the challenge.
New year, new challenge
After the challenge, Kevin took a long break from making things up, but by the end of 2024, his fans would see a new challenge. That's because Kmart decided that he would deal cards live on stream until he had the best hand in poker - a Royal Flush. The odds of making this hand are 649,739:1, which gives a hint that this challenge could be a very long one.
The way the whole challenge will go is simple - on the first day Kevin dealt one hand, on the second day he dealt two hands, and so on. He's now past the first of the month and dealt 32 hands yesterday, and as you can probably guess, the Royal Flush still hasn't fallen. Kevin has dealt over 500 hands, and if the stats force him to deal up to the aforementioned 649,739 hands, this whole challenge will take over 3 years.
To spice up the whole challenge, Kevin adds a dollar to his sweat every day for every thousand followers he has on YouTube. Since he currently has 120 thousand followers, each day the pot grows by $120 and its current value is now almost $4 thousand. On the day he hits a Royal Flush, he donates that pot to one of his viewers. What do you think, will Kevin survive this challenge to the end? Will he manage to hit the Royal Flush this year or will he have to wait for it?
Source - YouTube, Twitch, Twitter (X), PokerStrategy