updated 9:42 p.m. ET July 4, 2008

LAS VEGAS - It takes plenty of confidence and oodles of cash just to play in the World Series of Poker main event, but the world’s best rounders are making things even spicier by raising the stakes against one another.

Gold bracelets command respect for winners of series events, but big-time poker pros Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey added an extra $200,000 incentive for each other to win one or more of the 55 events this year, Negreanu said.

Negreanu’s limit Texas Hold ’em win earlier this month got him $204,874 in prize money, but his bet with Ivey has nearly doubled that. Ivey can even the score if he wins the main event, a no-limit Texas Hold ’em tournament that will mean millions of dollars for the winner and certain poker fame.

California psychologist Jerry Yang — who gave the famous “Shuffle up and deal” order on Friday — beat 6,357 others last year to take home the event’s top prize of $8.25 million.

An additional 1,158 players entered the tournament on Friday, bringing the total for the first two days to 2,455 entrants. A tournament official said the lower total was expected Friday because of the July Fourth holiday.

Tournament officials have reported through speaking to players that Ivey has bet millions of dollars on himself winning a bracelet in this year’s World Series of Poker. He has cashed three times, but his best finish so far is ninth in the seven card stud world championship.

“I just did it because it’s fun and silly,” said Negreanu, who said the bets are often bigger than tournament buy-ins and can be staked on just about anything.

“Last year I had a bet: Me, Phil Ivey and Erick (Lindgren), $10,000 each, first one to shuffle their chips lost. So like you couldn’t shuffle your chips for the whole month — at all,” Negreanu said. “I won that one.”

No doubt the side bets are one indicator of how easily players like Negreanu, who busted out of the main event early on Friday, are willing to wager big money on whatever they feel like.

Barry Greenstein, a three-time bracelet winner who has more than $2 million in world series earnings, said he was rooting for Lindgren late in the H.O.R.S.E. tournament earlier this week until his girlfriend reminded him that he would lose $40,000 in a side bet if Lindgren won.

“I guess I have to root against him now,” Greenstein recalled saying as he switched his loyalty.

Greenstein said side bets were the reason he played in so many of the events at this year’s world series, because he had bet on himself winning one or two bracelets.

Greenstein wouldn’t say how much he had wagered in total, but did say that his victory in a seven-card Razz tournament got him more money from friends than from the roughly $158,000 in prize money.

“I have confidence that I’m one of the best tournament players in the world and so when I make these bets I’m doing it because I think I have an advantage and I think I’ll make money off them,” he said.

Poker pros Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari have brought side betting — known as “prop bets” by poker players — to the public with a cable television show that pits them gambling thousands of dollars against each other in outlandish situations.

“We’re just degenerate gamblers. That’s what we are,” Laak said Friday. As he spoke, he and Esfandiari had $1,000 on the line over what time Esfandiari’s assistant would be back in the apartment with their lunch.

“A lot of these guys have been winning for so many years straight that $10,000 is a small entry fee to them,” Laak said. “They’re like, ’Wow, why can’t it be $100 (thousand), something where I can feel the pain.”’

Esfandiari, who won the $1,000 food bet, said he would be willing to bet on anything if he thought he had a good chance of winning money.

But for Negreanu, not everything is fair game.

“When it comes to death or marriage, it’s off limits to me,” he said.

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