He’s back once again
If you’re into sports betting, the name Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale is probably well known to you by now. The furniture store owner has locked in some of the largest wagers ever placed over the past few years, and he’s back to shatter another record for Super Bowl LVI.
the second-largest legal Super Bowl wager ever placed
On Thursday evening, Mack placed a $4.5m Super Bowl wager on the Caesars Sportsbook app in Louisiana, marking the single largest mobile bet of all time. It’s also the second-largest legal Super Bowl wager ever placed, beaten only by a $4.9m bet during the 2002 event.
Caesars Sportsbook took to Twitter to share news of the astonishing wager:
Mack is backing the Cincinnati Bengals to beat the Los Angeles Rams at odds of +170. If the underdogs lift the trophy, the famed bettor will take home an eye-watering $7.7m from a single wager.
As reported by ESPN, Mack drove from Texas to Louisiana before placing the bet on his phone at a gas station. “I had to make like twenty $200,000 bets to make it work,” the businessman explained. “But I want to thank Caesars for taking it.”
A turbulent betting history
Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has a rollercoaster relationship with wagering. He will hope this latest Super Bowl bet can kickstart a turn in his fortunes after already losing various multimillion-dollar wagers in 2022. In just ten weeks leading up to mid-January, Mack lost around $11.4m betting on the NFL, NCAA, and MLB.
The largest of those losing wagers saw Mattress Mack kiss goodbye to $6.1m when the Georgia Bulldogs beat the Alabama Crimson Tide to win the NCAA title. That same week, he lost another $2m backing the New England Patriots to claim victory in the 2022 Super Bowl.
Despite these losses, Mack does have a history of successful Super Bowl wagering. Last year, the sports bettor earned $3.16m after wagering $3.46m on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win Super Bowl LV. Mattress Mack’s wager marked the largest-ever on that particular game and was among the biggest in Super Bowl history. Of course, he had to one-up that again this year.
What are the odds?
This year’s Super Bowl will kick off on February 13, and sportsbooks have released their odds for the fixture with the Rams the clear favorites.
-195 for the Rams to take the win and +165 for the Bengals
Both BetMGM and DraftKings are offering odds of -195 for the Rams to take the win and +165 for the Bengals to cause an upset. Similarly, FanDuel is offering odds of -198 and +166, while Caesars Sportsbook has offered -196 and +170.
Outside of just the main result, bettors can also wager on Super Bowl LVI’s most valuable player. According to sportsbooks, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is the most likely to earn the accolade at odds of +155 with FanDuel and +100 with DraftKings. Bengals QB Joe Burrow is second up, priced at +210 with BetMGM.