Gaines and his partner, Duncan Carroll, both 25, are among those who have capitalized on keen entrepreneurial sense to make money off of beer pong. Gaines and Carroll are the creators of bpong.com, a website dedicated to beer pong with photos, statistics and merchandise.
And then came the granddaddy of ideas. Gaines started the World Series of Beer Pong in Mesquite, Nev., which took place this past January.
He advertised on popular college websites, and scored approximately 20,000 hits on the first day. The tournament lured 78 two-man teams to Mesquite. Among the pairs were 30-year-old plumbers from Pennsylvania, two soldiers who had served tours in Iraq and paramedics from South Carolina.
The rules were structured to discourage binge drinking—each team played one game an hour and used two beers to load their cups. If played properly, every participant drank only one beer an hour, Gaines says.
“I don’t know if it was luck or what, but everything was just unbelievably perfect,” Gaines says. “People figured they would just come out and get drunk and have fun, but when they saw how the tournament was structured, they really appreciated what we had done.”
The tournament was won by a pair of Michigan students—Nick Velissaris, a collegiate wrestler, and Jason Coben, a world-class diver who is training for the 2008 Olympics, Gaines says.
Gaines only made about $2,000 from the tournament, but says he plans on hosting the second annual event in 2007.
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