button in SafariNik Airball Has Won $6 Million on Poker Livestreams Since December 2023
Many poker fans have been critical of Nikhil "Nik Airball" Arcot's game the past few years.
Some think he's a fish, especially after he lost $1 million in little time in a heads-up contest against Matt Berkey at Resorts World in Las Vegas three years ago. But since that one-sided match, Airball has been crushing it, at least on livestreams.
The self-proclaimed "King of LA," according to the HighRollPoker.com database, was down nearly $878,000 on poker livestreams in December 2023. He hasn't since just erased those losses. Airball, after a strong outing this weekend on Hustler Casino Live's High Stakes Live streams at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), is closing in on being the most profitable livestream ring game player ever.
Is Nik Airball Becoming a Star?
Putting aside opinions on if Nik Airball is good, bad, or average at poker, the numbers over the past couple of years on livestreams, mostly Hustler Casino Live, are staggering.
Airball lost $192,000 Saturday night on the HCL stream at the WSOP. But tough sessions have been a rarity for the high-stakes cash game grinder lately.
Most of Airball's 1,400-plus hours of livestream cash game play have come at Hustler Casino in Los Angeles. But he's also up over $1.3 million on High Stakes Poker and nearly $1.2 million on the livestream at The Lodge Card Club in Texas, along with small losses on Bally Poker Live and No Gamble, No Future.
In the past 30 days, he's appeared in 11 high-stakes livestreams, all on Hustler Casino Live. Over that span, he's won approximately $1.65 million. His biggest win during that stretch went for $995,000 on May 15. Airball booked a $462,000 win Friday night in the first-ever WSOP high-stakes livestreamed cash game.
The heater isn't just a recent thing for Airball. He's gone from down nearly $900,000 lifetime on livestreams in December 2023 to now up over $5.1 million, greater than a $6 million upswing. Airball's biggest livestream win — $1,295,000 — came in December 2025 during Hustler Casino Live's Million Dollar Marathon game.
Nik Airball's profits will spike even further or collapse on Friday when he competes in the Million Dollar Game. He could make a run at Andrew Robl, who is up $7.9 million, for the top spot among livestream ring game players. Dan "Jungleman" Cates is the most profitable livestream poker player ever at $14.3 million, but he won $15 million in one heads-up session last year against Ossi "Monarch" Ketola.
This year's Million Dollar Game, originally scheduled to appear at Hustler Casino in May, will take place on a WSOP feature table starting at 5 p.m. PT on Friday. Airball, Michael "Texas Mike" Moncek, Santhosh Suvarna, and Alan Keating are among the players scheduled to compete, all buying in for at least $1 million.
