Explanation of Viral Chinese Gambling Video

We’ve probably all dreamed of playing our home games with massive stacks of real cash in front of us, throwing huge wads of dollars into the middle without a care in the world, as we chew on our cigars and laugh!

For most of us, unless we win the Main Event or get an invite to Phil Ivey’s house, we’re not going to get that chance. However, a new viral video from China shows 4 young guys doing exactly that – splashing monstrous bricks of Chinese Yuan currency onto the table.

The Chinese are well-known for their gambling tendencies, of course, but this one takes things to the extreme; £6million of cold hard cash hitting the felt as the boys show off their – or perhaps their bosses – wealth.

Over 15,000 comments have been left on the video – many of the usual trolling nonsense variety – but some of the 10million+ viewers have tried to work out if the video shows a real game or not.

My source –Ava: small, beautiful, Taiwanese, and a card-shark– is pretty much convinced that it’s all done for show; the money is real but the actions of the 4 involved are basically ‘mugging for the camera’.

Bets are made out of turn, with calls of “200,000…500,000….1million” and at the end of the hand one guy turns over his cards even as the betting is going on!

So, not a show of “poker or any card skill” says my little Ava, but still impressive that they can get their hands on so much cash to play with! Where does it come from?

In general the Chinese have a liking for real money rather than chips or banks or other ‘virtual’ forms of money, and the safe in the background means they are most likely using the company’s cash assets for their little game.

Stacks of a million Yuan (equal to about $156,000) sound great when they’re hitting the deck, but the silly-looking filtered cigarettes (being smoked by non-smokers by the look of things), the table too small for a real game and the general attitude of the players is all wrong if this were to be real.

Of course, it’s the bricks of cash which catch the eye – and this is apparently completely normal for underground cash games in China and its gambling haven of Macau.

Street gambling on dice, mah-jong and a hundred other games, is also a hugely popular pastime in the eastern nation but might not see such ridiculous stacks changing hands. The high-rollers – which these four young men are pretending to be – tends not to find its way onto ‘viral videos’. If it ever does, rest assured my little Ava will let us all know about it!