The big betting Taranaki man surging to international fame
A former farrier from a tiny rural Taranaki village has become one of the most well-known Kiwis on the planet for documenting his astonishingly large bets as he tries to make $1 million playing blackjack.
Tim Myers, who calls himself Tim.naki online, has become an international sensation since Februrary 1, when he posted on social media that he would bet 10 cents for every Instagram follower he had on one hand of blackjack a day.
He posts videos of his bets to his Instagram account, often from different locations around the world and while wearing a Warriors top and a black cap.
Despite his heavy use of expletives in the videos, they are incredibly popular.
His number of followers has grown to more than 1 million in weeks, meaning he has been betting six-figure sums on a single hand of blackjack lasting seconds.
By Wednesday, he had reached a reached a profit of $971,000 and was on the cusp of hitting $1m, a level at which he had previously said he might quit. But then he lost a bet of $111,000 (enough to buy a 2024 Ford Ranger and a luxury Caribbean holiday) only to promise he’d be back the next day.
However, Myers routinely warns against anyone trying to copy what he was doing and frequently reminds people the “house” always wins in the end. “It’s not a rational or logical path that anybody should try and replicate. I’m definitely an anomaly.”
Originally from Manutahi, a dot on the map between Patea and Hāwera in South Taranaki, Myers went to Hāwera High School, was a competitive showjumper and trained as a farrier – a specialist in looking after horse hooves.
Since starting his quest for $1m in February, his fame has grown rapidly. On March 28, he had 320,000 followers. Three weeks later, he had 810,000 fans. Now he’s surged past 1.1 million and counts the likes of Kelly Slater, the former multiple world champion surfer, among his supporter base.
“What a ride we are on,” he told former Taranaki rugby captain James Marshall on the What A Lad podcast. “I’ve been punting ponies from a young age. What people are seeing is a really small snippet of my gambling, and I still have plenty of losses.
“For some reason, doing one-hand blackjack has just worked. It’s just dumb luck.”
Myers, who appears to be back in Taranaki, told Marshall he had suffered a bad injury from showjumping and ended up on his family’s dairy farm before moving to Canada with his girlfriend. “Eventually we will end up in New Zealand, probably rural, but I don’t know where and when.”