How Tim Myers Pulled Off the Blackjack (and Social Media) Run of the Century

Kate Lindsay
·9 min read

Photographs: Getty Images, Tim Myers; Collage: Gabe Conte

Tim Myers has been on a hot streak. He swung by Vegas, hit up New Orleans for Jazz Fest, and is now recovering back in Canada after attending a bachelor party in New Zealand, where he is originally from. But this is nothing compared to the heater he just had on the blackjack table.

On February 1, the former dairy farmer decided to raise the stakes of his previously informal gambling hobby by promising to bet 10 cents for every Instagram follower he had. At the time, he had just 15,000—nothing to sneeze at, but also nothing compared to the 1.3 million now tuning in. Over the past few months, using the online gambling platform Razed, the creator has racked up tens of millions of views on Reels of his quick, sometimes expletive-laden bets. And gained notoriety in the online gambling community, which has been torn between praising his genius and accusing him of faking the whole thing. Myers called it quits on Sunday, May 19, after flirting with one million New Zealand dollars in profit, ultimately landing 500,171 NZD in the black (more than 300,000 USD), and finding an entirely new career path.

Gambling “seems to be in a weird gray area for a lot of people,” Myers tells GQ over Zoom. “But to me it's just fun.” It’s this sense of play that seems to have propelled Myers’s popularity. Viewers came for the blackjack, but stayed for the creator’s electric energy, and the “soft insults” he threw at the uncanny-valley dealers sitting opposite him at the virtual table.

Here, he speaks about becoming an accidental content creator; how he pulled it off; and whether or not, as some skeptics think, it was all an elaborate marketing stunt.

GQ: What were you doing before you accidentally became a content creator?

Tim Meyers: I was a dairy farmer back in New Zealand, but I guess I've always enjoyed gambling a little bit. It wasn't something that I pushed enormously. It was just fun for me. I certainly wouldn't have called myself a content creator. Now I guess I have to. I have to accept that that's my fate. But in Calgary I wasn't working or doing anything necessarily. I'd sold all the cows and all my livestock and was leasing our little farm back to my parents. We were just kind of going through life thinking we'd do two years here and then head back to New Zealand. But the ridiculous luck I've had on the blackjack tables managed to extend our time here a little bit. And then I'll be able to use this growth to hopefully—I mean, it was never the point to—but to hopefully monetize it somehow and we'll be abroad a little bit longer.

How did this run get started?

I'd seen this American bloke Chewy [Thompson] on Instagram had started his own trend where he was walking one inch for every follower, every day. And it had blown up quite exponentially. I thought, That's kind of cool. I like the idea of that. I think I can find something similar in my own wheelhouse. I grew up in horse racing, always loved gambling a little bit. So February 1st I decided, I think I'm gonna do that with blackjack. It's easy to record really quickly. I can have a bit of interaction with the dealer or whatever, throw a soft insult at them.

I started. I had 15,000 followers—I think I got those during the Rugby World Cup last year where I was doing rugby reaction videos. So the first three days it didn't grow too much. Maybe a couple hundred a day. And then day four I woke up and it was up by 2,000, and then after that it was going up by another 4,000, then 5,000. So 10 cents per follower every day, started with a $1,500 bet, fast-forward to today where it's at 1.3 million, which still doesn't make any sense to me to say out loud. It's really quite insane and nonsensical. But I guess there's a lot of closet degenerates out there who just love to do their gambling vicariously through some other bloke on the internet, which from my end is good because it's better off me wasting money than someone else. I've been lucky up till now, but I mean—house always wins in the end.

Was this something you knew you were talented at?

I've played a lot of blackjack. As I said, I grew up in a horse racing family, so natural progression, you end up watching a lot of horse racing, you end up betting on horse racing, and then that morphs into other stuff. And in New Zealand, there's only four or five casinos in the entire country. And where I live, there's nothing. You'd have to drive five hours. So I suppose New Zealand's been—I was gonna say progressive, but I don't know if being first to using online casinos is a good thing to be progressive in. But online casinos have been more prominent there because of our inability to access casinos.

I've played online blackjack for a long, long time before starting this trend, not with as much success, I must say. As I said, the house always wins, but for some reason, it's just found a hot run. The law of averages has been starting to catch up with me in the last few days, I must admit that. I refer to the book of blackjack in my reels and stuff. There isn't an actual book, but what I mean by that is playing your hand mathematically to your best advantage. So I do know how to play that properly nowadays.

Why do you think your videos are so popular?

When I started it, without realizing, I was ticking all the boxes for a content creator. It just so happens that I did short and sharp, 60-second reels, something that's easy enough to follow. It's not too hard to explain to new people how the rules of blackjack work. And then I think what people seem to have enjoyed the most is me dishing out what I call a “soft insult” to the dealer every day; poor buggers on the other end of the table have no idea. Or they don't even have a chance to defend themselves ’cause they can't hear me.

Is the dealer a real person?

I had to debunk this one early doors, ’cause it was almost leaning towards more people thinking it was AI. And I understand in this day and age why you could think that. And to be honest, after someone said it, I was like, well, particularly the ladies, they all look perfect. They could be AI. They've obviously selected a very particular type. I don't know exactly where they operate out of. It's Eastern Europe somewhere.

And after four days, things started taking off?

It was day four where it grew by like 2,500, 2,700 overnight. And then some a-hole on day 20-odd bot-followed me with 50,000, and I was in panic stations. But it was easy enough to spot. Whoever did that, that prick caused me a lot of work. I had to manually remove 25,000 of them before Instagram could automatically remove the remainder.

How has your life changed since your run?

I don't think it's a concept I'll ever get used to. When we went down to New Orleans for Jazz Fest, I was like, There's no way I'm being recognized down here. But it was a lot. In my mind I'm like, Why would you want a photo with this pasty white kiwi? I've been really fortunate. I've had maybe two bad experiences from people the entire time.

And you’ve also partnered with brands.

I partnered with Razed Casino. I asked everyone if they wanted to run a syndicate where everyone could chip in a little bit and then watch me bet with it every day, to really ride the highs and lows with me. We didn't let people buy in big because we're not out here trying to ruin lives if it went bad or anything. We just want it to be fun. It actually kind of backlashed on me a little bit because it was an oversight. My three biggest geographics that follow me are USA, Australia, and UK—online casinos are actually not regulated in those jurisdictions. So none of them could even bloody join. But the New Zealanders and the Canadians, in particular, we had a great time.

What’s your response to people who have accused the whole thing of being fake?

I don't worry too much. I still get tinfoil haters going, “Well, you know, he could have hired a warehouse or a room somewhere or a hall somewhere.” As if I have the energy. It just makes no sense. It doesn't matter what you do. No one's ever won an argument with an idiot. I've kind of learned early on that there's no point. As long as you yourself know what you're doing is authentic, the people who follow you, the ones who have been on board from day one, they understand. And we have genuinely just been lucky. There's some people who think, Oh, there's no way you could have a hot streak this good. But we're running...I think it's a 61% win rate. So we're beating the casino at the moment, but it's not outrageous. It's not different to anyone having a hot run on a blackjack table, sitting there playing hand after hand. We've just been lucky. That's all.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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