Getty Image / Megan Briggs
Miami Heat superstar Jimmy Butler is no longer welcome on the most popular live stream in the poker industry, the Hustler Casino Live stream, and it was revealed Butler’s not welcome back after his horrible behavior toward Hustler Casino Live co-owner Nick Vertucci.
The cash game live stream has brought in some mega stars over the years, it has also produced the largest pots in televised poker history with a $3.1M Tom Dwan pot, and a stream last month featured boxer Ryan Garcia, University of Florida dropout turned social media star and playboy Dan Bilzerian, Twitch streamer Ninja, Brazilian soccer superstar Neymar, and Jimmy Butler among others.
Flash forward to Monday’s live stream and Hustler Casino Live co-owner Nick Vertucci, an extremely well known and respected figure in the poker industry, revealed that Jimmy Butler is no longer welcome on the stream. After another player asked Vertucci who the “biggest a– hole” he’d ever met in his life was, asking specifically if it was Dan Bilzerian, Vertucci said “Not Bilzerian, Jimmy Butler. I don’t like him.”
He elaborated further, saying “He was rude to everybody” and “I don’t want him back.” Nick Vertucci said “first of all, he got here and waited an hour and a half for Neymar to get here, and he was pissed and wouldn’t play unless he was here. So, he was just sitting in the seat and not playing. We had to move his seat because he wanted to sit by Neymar, closer to people he know,” he continued. “That’s okay, too, a little prima donna stuff, famous people, we’re good.”
Rob Perez shared a clip from the stream where Nick Vertucci talks about why Jimmy Butler is now banned from the biggest live stream in poker:
What happened with Jimmy Butler’s appearance on @HCLPokerShow pic.twitter.com/Rj9tIPfvLP
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) August 13, 2024
It wasn’t just the prima donna stuff either. Nick Vertucci said that Jimmy Butler didn’t understand straddling and stood up from the table in anger over it.
Things grew contentious after that, according Vertucci. He said “so I come up and I say, hey Jimmy, listen, is there anything I can do for you? He goes, ‘yeah, first thing you can do is get your f—– hand off my arm. And I didn’t move it, and I said ‘hold on, we’ve met, you may have forgotten, no big deal, but I own part of the show, I just want to help you.’ He goes, ‘if you want to help me, go get my money.’”
He also went on to say “I don’t care how many viewers he brings, I don’t want him back. He was rude to the dealers, he was rude to other players, he was rude to the staff. He’s not welcome back, clip that.”
Meanwhile, Jimmy Butler left the session having won $122,000 in his first and only appearance on the Hustler Casino Live stream. Pokernews points out that Butler only raised a meager 2% of hands pre-flop and then left with his winnings after swearing at the Hustler Casino Live co-owner.
I won’t speculate on why Jimmy Butler was acting the way he did at the poker table given that we have witnesses’ firsthand accounts. But it is very telling that there were other very famous, very wealthy people at the table and there were no reports of their misbehavior/rudeness/etc. Neymar Jr. has earned $400 million in his soccer career (Butler’s earned $264M). Dan Bilzerian is said to be worth $200M. So it’s not as if it was a table full of rich/entitled people all acting a specific way….
The full stream with Jimmy Butler and the other celebrities can be seen on YouTube for anyone who wants to go back and watch it: