The San Diego surfer boy who told everyone he was a barbecue server, played poker professionally the entire time, and left The Stag with his arm around the woman who voted him out
Hunter Call arrived at The Stag with a plan and a persona, and he executed both with enough precision to make it all the way to Episode 6. Here’s everything you need to know about him.
Who Is Hunter Call?
Hunter Call is a 24-year-old professional poker player from San Diego, California — though nobody at The Stag knew that for most of the season. He is the kind of person who looks exactly like what San Diego produces: laid-back, sporty, easy to like. That was not an accident.
Before poker became his career, he worked at a zoo, tried landscaping, did hospitality, sold things door-to-door, and cleaned ponds for four straight summers in high school alongside two of his closest friends. Nothing stuck until 2020, when poker found him — or more accurately, when he found poker and decided it was the only thing worth pursuing seriously.
He has a loving family behind him — a white mother, a Black father, and two younger sisters — and openly credits them as his support system through the more grinding stretches of building a poker career. He plays basketball, baseball, and surfs.
He documents his poker sessions, monthly earnings, and recovery from losses on social media, which has built him a following among people interested in the unglamorous reality of professional gambling.
The Poker Journey
Hunter’s path to playing poker full-time was not linear. He spent two years after discovering the game playing casually with college friends and in low-stakes local events, learning the mechanics before putting real money on the line.
In 2023, he made the jump — quit his job and went all in on poker as a career. It did not immediately work. He had to go back to working part-time as a server while continuing to improve his game, which meant the barbecue restaurant cover story he used at The Stag was not entirely invented. He had actually done it.
By 2025, things started clicking. He was winning more consistently than he was losing, though the variance was still real — October brought a $9,000 loss that he clawed $5,000 back from. He kept going. His biggest month on record came in March 2026, the same month he appeared on “Million Dollar Secret”: 108 hours of play, $18,651 earned at an hourly rate of $172.
The Strategy
Walking into The Stag, Hunter was clear-eyed about what he needed to do. In his opening confessional: “My goal is to come into the game as the ‘likeable idiot.’ I’m actively lying about my job.” He did not want anyone to know he was a poker player — someone trained to read people, detect bluffs, and manage information under pressure — because he knew that knowledge would make people keep their distance. The barbecue server persona gave him cover. The laid-back surfer energy did the rest.
It worked remarkably well. Within two days he had built genuine relationships across the house, earned enough trust to be nominated to receive the first clue from the trophy room, and positioned himself as someone the group wanted on their side rather than someone they needed to watch.
The only crack in the early game came from Natalie Noisom, who pushed back on sending him to the trophy room alone — correctly identifying him as a suspect while everyone else was comfortable with the choice.
A professional poker player pretending to be bad at reading people, in a game entirely built on reading people, is either the best strategy anyone has brought to The Stag or the most obvious thing in the room once someone starts looking. For six episodes, the house mostly did not look.
What He Was Like in the Game
Hunter was a genuine presence — not just a strategic one. His friendship with Nick Pellecchia was real. His relationship with Lauren Gierth had a warmth that came through clearly on screen. He was the person who advocated for group thinking at key moments, who pushed to share information rather than hoard it, and who made arguments at the elimination dinner table that were genuinely well-reasoned even when they were not working in his favor.
He also had moments that cost him. Suggesting Nick throw the casino night immunity challenge was the move that gave Nick the ammunition he needed to justify backdooring him. Hunter read the situation correctly — Nick was the millionaire and giving Kaleb immunity was the safer play — but Nick did not want to hear it, and the suggestion planted a seed of irritation that Umeko Peterson watered into a full campaign against him by morning.
His elimination came down to a vote that was technically a tie — four for Hunter, four for Nick — until Nick’s two canceled votes shifted the result to 4-2. Lauren Gierth, of Team Nap fame, voted against him despite the evident pain it caused her. Kat Ellis, who had warned him the vote was coming and agonized over it openly, voted against him anyway. The poker player lost the hand he needed most.
How He Left
Hunter opened his box, confirmed it was empty, and then told the room the truth for the first time: “I also lied about my profession this entire time. I play poker professionally.”
His goodbye to Nick was genuine and immediate. A big hug. “Brother, hell of a game.”
In his exit confessional: “I’m extremely proud of the way I played the game. Unfortunately, Nick betrayed me, but that’s in his best interest. And Umeko definitely sold me out. Trusting everyone in the world isn’t necessarily the best decision if you want to be successful. That was my downfall in this game.”
After The Stag
Hunter and Natalie Noisom — who clashed memorably in Episode 1 over the trophy room and called each other idiots before the first elimination dinner — have since made peace. A recent Instagram video captures the trajectory perfectly: a clip of their argument from the show, followed by footage of the two of them on a ski lift together taking a shot and laughing. The caption: “From taking shots at each other to taking shots with each other.”
Hunter and Nick have also shared posts showing that there is no ill-will towards each other following what happened in The Stag.
“Million Dollar Secret” Season 2 streams on Netflix. The finale drops April 29.
Read Next:
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 1 Recap
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 2 Recap
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 3 Recap
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 4 Recap
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 5 Recap
- ‘Million Dollar Secret’ Episode 6 Recap
- Did Natalie Noisom Blow Up Her Own Game on ‘Million Dollar Secret’?
- Who is Altie Holcomb on ‘Million Dollar Secret’?
- Who Is Natalie Noisom on ‘Million Dollar Secret’?
- Why Was Altie Holcomb Eliminated on ‘Million Dollar Secret’?
- Why Was Everyone Suspicious of Lauren T. on ‘Million Dollar’ Secret’?
For more “Million Dollar Secret,” click here.
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