Jonathan ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ Karamalikis hopes his Big Stack Underwear line takes offl

David Beckham has his own fragrance line. Kobe Bryant has his own line of sneaker. So does Michael Jordan. John Elway once sold five car dealerships for $80 million. Mike Ditka has a well-known chain of steakhouses.

Enter Jonathan ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ Karamalikis, who started a line of underwear targeted at poker players called Big Stack Underwear. It’s not just any kind of underwear. According to its website, it’s “the most comfortable underwear you will ever wear.”

“My dad has been in the retail industry,” Karamalikis said. “He was always brainstorming ideas. We were having dinner one night with one of his good mates and that person had been in the underwear industry for 20 years. We decided to create a poker-based underwear company.”

So far at least, the undie gods have been treating Karamalikis well. The end product is made from 95% viscose from bamboo and the website is littered with poker imagery and lingo. “It picked up traction during the Aussie Millions,” Karamalikis said. “We have to pick up the social media, though. A lot of our marketing right now is the presence of patches that other pros and I have been wearing.”

Big Stack Underwear isn’t cheap. At Target, you can buy five boxers for $20. At Big Stack Underwear, $20 will get you one pair… maybe. Each runs between $25 and $29 AUD and they all have poker-themed names like “suits trunks” and “big blind briefs.”

“It molds to your junk,” Karamalikis candidly said when asked why his underwear was worth the price of five pairs from a major retail chain. “We’ve done market research of high quality underwear and ours is better than the designer brands like Calvin Klein. We just don’t have the name quite yet.”

Karamalikis is the company’s CEO and runs it alongside a few other partners. He admitted that business isn’t booming quite yet, but someone recently placed an order for 100 pairs. That guy is apparently set for life.

Even Big Stack’s packaging is poker-themed

The Australian’s time spent hawking bamboo briefs has taken away from his ability to focus wholeheartedly on the poker felts. Nevertheless, he found a few hours last weekend to take down the six-max PokerStars Sunday Supersonic for $47,000, his 17th largest online poker score to date.

“I’m still spending a lot of time on poker,” he said. “Big Stack is more of a side project. This is a new thing for me too. I’m still trying to get a grip on how to do things. I’ve been trying to keep more of an online presence for marketing purposes and constantly talk to people about it.”

Two of his largest online scores came in 2011: a WCOOP bracelet in a $215 Rebuy for $179,000 and a SCOOP kickoff final table for $101,000. All told, he has $5.8 million in career online tournament winnings along with another $2.5 million in live cashes. He’s one of the most well-known and successful players in Australian poker history.

Accordingly, even if his underwear business were to blow up, he wouldn’t abandon the game that’s molded him into what he is today. “If it got really big,” Karamalikis said, “I’d want to make sure I had enough time to play poker and so would delegate work. It’ll be a good problem to have.”

Karamalikis won the Asia Championship of Poker High Roller Event in 2012 for almost $500,000 and took down the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Main Event in Sydney a half-dozen years ago for $454,000. Accordingly, he has received a ton of face time in the poker world and in the mainstream press.

“I think I am an Australian ambassador,” Karamalikis said. “I’ve been around for a long time. I know a lot of people from difference facets of the poker world. When people think of Australian poker players, I hope to be one of the first ones they think of.” Other popular players from “Down Under” include Joe Hachem, Jeff Lisandro, and Tyron Krost.

A little over two months into 2016, Karamalikis is planning to take poker as it comes. However, he still has one lofty goal in mind, something he can try to cross off his bucket list in a few short months. “I want to do well in the WSOP Main Event,” he said. “I’ve probably played the Main Event five times and cashed once. I’m looking forward to it.”