“Poker Queen” Goes All In on $10,000 Bet to Go Vegan

Professional poker player Jamie Kerstetter pledged to go vegan for one year in exchange for $10,000 after accepting a “prop” bet on Twitter. Fellow poker player and commentator David Tuchman recently asked his Twitter following how much money it would take for them to go vegan for a full year. Kerstetter, lauded as the “Poker Queen of Twitter,” responded with a reasonable $10,000 offer, stating, “Interested in doing it anyway and it would cover the more expensive grocery bills.” While the bet was made in good fun, Kerstetter is serious about embarking on her vegan journey, with $10,000 in hand. “It feels bad in the back of my mind to ignore what I know is the right thing to do and just keep allowing myself to have no willpower,” Kerstetter told Poker News. “Basically I want to stop the cognitive dissonance involved with being an animal lover who cares about the environment … until I want ice cream enough.” To uphold her end of the bet, Kerstetter will go vegan until February 6, 2020 and blog about her journey at least two times per month. Should she fail to go vegan, Kerstetter promised to volunteer for 100 hours at a charitable organization and return the $10,000 if she does not complete the 100 hours within one year. In the beginning stages of her transition, Kerstetter—who was inspired to finally ditch dairy by activist Erin Janus’ video “Dairy is Scary”— is already noticing things many vegans grapple with daily. “Random trolls said they’d eat double the meat to make up for it … so maybe vegans aren’t the annoying ones despite what the cool memes would say,” Kerstetter said. “It doesn’t really make sense because [vegans are] not hurting anyone and are actually trying to be nicer, more considerate people who care about animal suffering and the environment. I feel like I’ve probably made the ‘mmm bacon’ comment at some point before really understanding what they are doing for everyone else—I’m sure I’ll appreciate them, even more, when I see how difficult this will be.”