Nik Airball Reveals How He Made His Money; Rival Matt Berkey Isn't Buying It
Where did Nikhil "Nik Airball" Arcot get his high-stakes poker bankroll? That's been a topic of discussion among the poker community for a couple years, and the answer hasn't been clear.
The former Hustler Casino Live regular appeared on the Table 1 podcast and gave hosts Justin Young and Art Parmann a brief explanation of where he got his money. But Matt Berkey, who won $1 million off Airball in a heads-up challenge last year, referred to Airball's comments as "b******t."
There's no love lost between the bitter rivals who faced off at Las Vegas' Resorts World in a highly-publicized poker match in 2023 that ended after just 60 hours of play. Airball took a shot at Berkey during the Table 1 podcast, referring to his former opponent as dishonest.
Nik Airball Discusses His Wealth on 888Ride
Where Did Nik Airball Get His Money?
Nik Airball, 28, burst onto the scene in 2022 on Hustler Casino Live. He started out playing the lower stakes games on the show before moving to the bigger games. The former investment banker quickly went from an unknown to a polarizing figure on the most popular livestream in poker history.
He more or less replaced Garrett Adelstein, who hasn't been welcomed back on the show since the infamous J4 game in Sept. 2022, as the face of Hustler Casino Live. But it's never been clear where the young poker player built his wealth. Some poker fans have suggested it came from an inheritance. Airball, however, told a different story, although he didn't go into specifics.
Young and Parmann asked Airball about his professional background, to which the guest said he spent his early 20's working in investment banking making around $100,000 per year plus bonuses "depending on how you do that could be anywhere from zero to maybe a million dollars." But it doesn't appear the job is where he accumulated enough money to play nosebleed cash games.
"There were multiple times where I'd be playing at Hustler and I would have 90% of my net worth on the table or whatever, like sitting around 500k deep and, you know, I had 50k in the bank account."
Airball then continued to say that during those days if he lost most of the $500,000 or so he had to his name at the poker table, he could still pay his bills with his, as he claims, $5,000 per month job, a statement that caused Berkey to rant.
"I was lucky enough to run pretty good, and you know at the time I was very focused on like playing good. I think my first year and a half or so on Hustler, I think I was playing pretty f*****g lights out hold'em. I would have taken on anyone at the time, and I was crushing everyone, I felt like on-stream and off-stream and stuff," Airball claims.
Nik Airball's overall tally on Hustler Casino Live over 128 sessions is a $201,000 loss, according to TrackingPoker.com. But the site only tracks profits and losses for the players while on-stream. The games often continue for hours after the cameras stop rolling.
Airball, as he explained in the Table 1 podcast interview, competes in some big private games, mostly in Southern California. He implied that the bulk of his bankroll has come from poker winnings, and said he's played as high as $5,000/$10,000 blinds pot-limit Omaha. Berkey and others, however, aren't buying it, and some have concocted theories about where the money’s come from, most notably inheritance, to which he's denied.
The high-stakes poker player also said in the interview that he's seeking action against his ability to turn $20,000 into $1 million with a year. You can listen to the full 90-minute conversation with Nik Airball on the Table 1 podcast below.
