Phil Ivey, a professional poker player, made a huge $2 Million bet on the LA Lakers to win the NBA Playoffs this year. And with the Lakers losing the first two games to the Boston Celtics, Ivey was sweating big time.

The Tao of Poker blog recounts the evening last night when he witnessed Ivey competing in the preliminary rounds of the World Series of Poker while trying to keep track of the Lakers in game 3 of the series.

According to a post on the blog by Pauly:

Ivey was intensely sweating Game 3. He supposedly greased the guy with the remote to turn off the [WSOP] tournament clock and put the Lakers/Celtics game on instead...

...The game started right around 6pm. For the next three hours, Ivey could not sit still. He stood up a lot, paced back and forth, and constantly checked his crackberry. I had never seen so much emotion out of Ivey before. His usual expressionless face that was cool as a tenor sax solo from John Coltrane had disappeared and replaced by intervals of anxiety.

Check out some of these glorious photos of the man stressin' out after the jump:

The rest of the photos and Ivey's happy face when the Lakers won at Tao of Poker.

Yeah, the Lakers won Game 3 and Ivey was happy, but this guy has some serious balls. A $2 million bet is insane. Especially with the exposed and disgraced former NBA ref, Tim Donaghy, claiming that the NBA wanted him to fix games for better ratings, I wonder if bets like Ivey's are coming under extra scrutiny. Could the guy know more than he's letting on?

Yeah, I know, entirely unlikely. And Donaghy is definitely full of crap. But come on, a $2 million bet against the team (Celtics) with the best regular season record?

I think this bet got me more interested in the Finals.

Tao of Poker via Opening Bell

The Kentucky Derby might soon become more than just getting drunk and screaming at animals, because betting at the track just got a hell of a lot easier, and riskier too.

Picking the winner at the Kentucky Derby this Saturday could earn you some winnings, but for the guys owning those horses stand to make millions from their investment.

International Equine Acquisitions Holdings allows you to own a stake in not just one horse, but a full portfolio of potential winners. It works like a hedge fund.

You invest with IEAH, they use your money to breed, feed, and promote their stable of horses, and if any of those ponies turns out to be a big winner, you could be counting a lot of money. So far 100 investors have contributed over $1 million to the fund.

To make things a little more legit, IEAH also owns and operates an equine hospital that will open this year to care for racehorses. This hospital part of the fund would bring in and maintain some semblance of steady revenue.

Skeptics of this whole idea say it's bogus because you can't predict revenue. There's no way to know how much you could expect to win depending on how the horses place. It's may not be worth the added risk and slim chance of payoff.

According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, IEAH principal founder Michael Iavarone said:

"As long as we're within the law … I don't care what people think whether it's a good idea or it's not."

This does not sound like a guy who should be managing racehorse money. Really, his only defense to the obvious potential flaws in his business plan is 'as long as it's legal we're going for it'.

I mean, yeah, it would be great if these horses won and you got a ton of money, but how's that any different than just placing a single bet?

Terrible idea or brilliant strategy? Think the favored 'Big Brown' can win it? What's your favorite Mint Julep recipe? Let us know in the comments.

Louisville Courier-Journal: Racehorse hedge fund considered, May 1, 2008
CNBC Sports Biz: Hedging Horse (video), May 1, 2008