Not a good day for some
Super Bowl LVIII went right down to the wire on Sunday, with the Kansas City Chiefs getting the win in the final seconds of the first overtime. It’s not just the San Francisco 49ers licking their wounds today, as some bettors lost massive wagers on the action.
High stakes poker player Sean Perry, a self-proclaimed top sports bettor, put $1.1m on the 49ers coming out victorious. He would have made a profit of $1m if the result went his way and posted a picture of his ticket with the Circa Sportsbook on X:
A Caesars Sportsbook customer lost their $1m wager on the 49ers and lost another $200,000 on Brock Purdy being named the game’s MVP. Fanatics Sportsbook and BetMGM also took in losing eight-figure wagers on the 49ers.
Another loser of the Super Bowl was the sportsbooks. BetMGM Senior Trader Tristan Davis told ESPN that many people picked the Chiefs to win and the overs on numerous popular player prop markets. A record 68 million adult Americans were predicted to bet on the big game.
The winners
Superstar rapper Drake has a track record of bad bets. It got so bad that many people said that whichever team or athlete he bets on will be cursed in the upcoming event. The curse did not strike on Sunday as Drake successfully backed the Chiefs to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. He put $1.15m on Kansas City on Stake, notching a total payout of $2.3m.
Apart from Drake’s bet, the next biggest wager on the Chiefs was placed at the Circa Sportsbook. This $1m stake resulted in a profit of $909,090 for the successful bettor:
It’s not just the huge stakes that catch the eye. An online sports bettor with FanDuel turned a $14 double into more than $7,000 by successfully predicting two of the touchdown scorers:
Quirkier bets
People who predicted that no Gatorade would be poured over the winning head coach after the game at odds of +1000 were licking their lips as it initially appeared that Andy Reid would escape a shower. It was only during the second wave of celebrations that players doused him in purple Gatorade:
A BetMGM bettor even wagered $100,000 on the result of the coin toss. They successfully bagged $95,238 on heads coming up heads.