Some Guy Lost $100K on a 15-Team Parlay When the Patriots Missed Covering by 1 Point
A $5 parlay almost became a $100,000 win.
Almost.https://t.co/VEY7cFRhzn
— ESPN (@espn) December 13, 2016
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ESPN – A man who bet $5 on a 15-leg parlay card at a William Hill sports book in Nevada needed the New England Patriots to win by more than seven points to win $100,000 on Monday.
Because the Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens by exactly seven, 30-23, the result of the 15th game of the parlay, after the previous 14 had come through, was a push.
William Hill spokesman Michael Grodsky confirmed to ESPN that it was an all-or-nothing parlay card. As such, the push didn’t reduce it to winning a 14-leg parlay; it made the entire card worthless.
In the words of the great Mike McDermott, quoting the words of Jack King in Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, “Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.” And the poor slappie who came within point of a $100,000 payday because Tom Brady threw a terrible red zone pick and the Pats opted to go for it on 4th down instead of give Stephen Gostkowski the chance to seal the win with a 42-yarder should remember this beat for the rest of his life.
There’s so much going on in this story that explains why like Lt. Frank Drebin, I only gamble when I order out. I mean, I’ll play low stakes poker with the guys I grew up with, but that’s the extent of it. As much as that probably runs counter to how most Stoolies operate, I just never enjoyed winning as much as I hated to lose. If I was this guy, watching 100 grand slip through my fingers on a coach’s decision in the last 13 seconds of my 15th game, I’d put my head in an oven.
But a bigger issue that that payout, which is a fucking joke. $100,000 might sound like a lot, but the house is printing money with that. That’s a 20,000-to-1 payout for hitting 15 games ATS? I’m too cute to have to be good at math, but it sounds to me like with odds like those, they should be making the winner a half a billionaire.
But instead, they’ve just made him into another loser. One of those slobs who’ll be spending the rest of his life telling the story of the time he almost won a hundred grand in a weekend. And I don’t know who I feel worse for, him or all the people who’ll have to listen to this sob story.