Here are a few of the biggest wins in sports!
10 - The Super Bet William T. Walters was born in rural Kentucky
to an alcoholic mother and a father who passed away when Walters was a baby.
His grandmother raised him in a home with no running water or indoor plumbing.
At seven, he entered the business world when he got a $40 bank loan to buy a lawnmower
to start his own landscaping business.
At nine, he worked as a paperboy and used his salary to gamble.
His first bet was on the 1955 world series when he bet the New York Yankees would beat
the Los Angeles Dodgers—a bet he lost.
Walters continued gambling and lost $50,000 by 22-years-old.
He wasn’t a good gambler and even lost his house once.
Walters was known to have lost $1 million at least twice at Las Vegas blackjack tables.
So, when he asked for a $2 million freeze-out at Caesar’s casino, they declined the request.
But Atlantic casino accepted, and he and a friend ended up winning $3.8 million.
His good fortune continued when he won the 1986 Super Bowl of Poker, taking home $175,000.
But his real fortune came in the 1980s when Walters joined the Computer Group, which used
digital analysis to predict sports game outcomes.
In his 39-year-career with the Computer Group, he only had one losing year and maintained
a 30-year-winning streak.
His big win came from Super Bowl 43 in 2009, when he bet the New Orleans Saints would beat
the Indianapolis Colts.
He ended up winning $3.5 million that day.
Walters estimated that he could make $50-60 million in winning bets in a good year.
He came from humble beginnings but now boasts a net worth of over $100 million.
9 - Royal Bet In November 2015, the Kansas City Royals won
their first World Series in 30 years, and Dave Oancea won millions of dollars.
Known as Vegas Dave, he bet $100,000 on the Royals in week one of the regular season to
win the World Series at 30 to 1 odds.
Vegas Dave had several opportunities to cash out as the Royals continued their winning
streak, but he declined.
There was such a small chance of him winning, but the professional gambler inspired people
to wager on the underdog when he took home $2.5 million.
This $2.5 million payout was the largest future bet in the history of sports betting.
Dave bet his money at multiple casinos throughout Las Vegas and had a history of always rooting
for his home team, the Royals.
This win made Vegas Dave one of the most successful sports bettors in the world.
Dave said he’ll use his millions to buy his parents a home and donate turkeys and
toys to the community during the holiday season.
He continues to make high stakes bets upwards of $200,000 each week and consults fellow
gamblers about their debts.
But not everyone believes the hype.
In fact, there have been allegations that Vegas Dave uses shady tactics to market himself
and make winning bets.
Some think Vegas Dave looks for situations where good teams play not-so-good teams.
Then advises people to pay him for common-sense predictions.
On the off-chance that the good team loses, Dave tells his clients to bet higher on the
next game because it’s unlikely that a team will lose two games in a row.
On top of that, you need to pay him at least $500 for your bets, so unless you take home
big money, it’s hardly worth it.
Does this sound like a scam yet?
8 - The Birthday Boy In 2008, a London man named Fred Craggs had
the best birthday of all time when he bet half a pound at a horse race and became an
instant millionaire.
Fred wasn’t aware of his winnings until he walked into the betting agency after the
races, and they told him about his good fortune.
On Fred’s behalf, the agency bet on eight horse races throughout the country, including
some with an odds of 2 million to one.
When he found out about his one million pound win, Fred turned pale and muttered that he
needed to go home and tell his wife.
Just over a decade later, a man who was also celebrating his birthday won the biggest payout
in Scottish betting history.
The anonymous small-stakes bettor made a series of five-pence bets for a total of £5.35.
He ended up taking home £682,000.
7 - Bet on Tiger James P. Adducci is a Wisconsin native who
bet $85,000 on Tiger Woods winning the 2019 Masters golf championship, with an odds of
14 to 1.
Tiger won, and Adducci walked away with $1.19 million.
Better yet, Adducci claims that this was his first-ever sports wager.
But shortly after his big win, a report from USA Today revealed his lengthy criminal record,
including violence and battery charges.
He was also a serial investor who invested over $500,000 in big corporations like Amazon.
But when it came to sports betting, the choice was clear.
Adducci’s role model is, and has always been, Tiger Woods, partly because of his amazing
golf skills and partly because of his ability to come back to sports after his dirty secrets
rose to the surface.
Adducci found inspiration in Woods’s story.
Before going to the William Hill betting agency, Adducci tried to place his wagers at other
casinos and agencies, but none would let him bet more than $10,000.
William Hill let him bet it all–a total of $85,000.
Like a true gambler, Adducci never even considered the possibility of losing.
Lucky for him, he won millions.
6 - Breeder’s Cup Scam The Breeder’s Cup came under fire in 2002
when Chris Harn, Derrick Davis, and Glen DaSilva conspired to manipulate bets and took home
$3 million.
Harn got involved because he was a computer programmer at Autotote, the company that handles
the wagers for most horse races in North America.
In 2001, he discovered unclaimed ticket data that could amount to hundreds of thousands
of dollars, but couldn’t cash them because of a conflict of interest.
So, he recruited two friends, Davis and DaSilva, to claim the tickets on his behalf.
Harn knew that he couldn’t keep this up for long without getting caught, so he devised
a plan to get one big payout and ride off into the sunset.
He went for the Ultra Pick 6 at the Breeder’s Cup horse race.
On race day, Davis and DaSilva placed several bets.
Then, Harn slipped into his office at Autotote and changed his friends’ wager data to reflect
the actual winners of the races.
They turned $1,100 in bets into $3.1 million in a few hours.
But people were suspicious about the nature of the bets, and a full-scale investigation
was launched.
When it came out that Harn went into the office on a day he wasn’t scheduled for work, he
confessed and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and computer fraud.
He also pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and was ultimately sentenced
to 1 year in prison.
DaSilva received two years, and Davis got 37 months behind bars.
The $3.1 million in winnings was split among 78 betters who got 5 out of 6 races correct.
Check out this full video to learn how these three almost got away with the biggest horse
racing scam of all time!
5 - Let it Ride An anonymous gambler from Eastern Europe could
have walked away with $14 million after game six of the 2017 World Series.
Instead, he decided to let it ride.
In-game seven, he stood to make $10.8 million if the Dodgers won or $16.8 million if the
Astros won.
Of course, he’d have to make the right bet.
Nobody knows much about the “let it ride bettor” other than he wasn’t a regular
Vegas sports better and only ever bet on UFC fights.
Could this man be fake?
Would casinos let a man bet so much money with such poor odds?
Could this be some sort of scheme?
Famous Las Vegas sports better RJ Bell weighed in on the story, claiming the man does exist.
He also broke the news via Twitter that the “let it ride bettor” decided to walk away
with his $14 million after game six.
4 - The McIlroy Bet Gerry McIlroy, the father of pro-golf Rory
McIlroy, has the utmost confidence in his son.
So much so that he bet 200 pounds in 2004 that Rory would win the British Open before
2014.
Well, 2014 came up quickly, and Rory still hadn’t won.
Things looked grim, but losing 200 pounds probably meant little to Gerry.
However, in the final year of his bet, Rory won the British open, and Gerry one 171,000
pounds.
You might think this would put extra pressure on Rory to win the British Open, but his father
hardly brought it up.
A British betting agency called Ladbrokes said Rory had a 500 to 1 odds of winning even
though he was already a prodigy and played on Europe’s Junior Ryder Cup team.
Gerry’s faith in his son inspired his friends to do the same.
Ladbrokes had to pay a combined $136,700 to two others who placed wagers on Rory.
After this major victory, Rory became the third person in a century to win three major
tournaments by age 25, joining the ranks of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
3 - 2 Pound Bet It must have been Steve Whiteley’s lucky
day when he entered the Exeter horse races for free and left a millionaire.
The engineer placed a two-pound bet and won the jackpot when he correctly picked all six
winning horses.
The champion horse was Lupita, whose unlikely win in the last race completely changed Steve’s
life.
He didn’t know much about racing and just took random guesses when making his bet.
Many gamblers were frustrated and angry because they spent months studying what horses could
win this race.
Whiteley won £1.4 million after-tax, which is the biggest win paid out in the race’s
history, and three times more than the previous record-breaking win.
As for Whiteley’s post-jackpot lifestyle, he used the money to upgrade his seat on a
flight to Australia and helped a friend redo his bathroom.
But regarding potential retirement, he vowed to work until he died.
2 - The Lions Upset Tayla Polia had a stroke of beginner’s luck
when her second-ever sports bet won her over $100,000.
She moved to Las Vegas two months before with only $20 in the bank.
She and her boyfriend were on the couch discussing sports betting, and she didn’t understand
how it all worked.
Finally, she made a $5 bet on a 15-leg NFL parlay with 20,000 to 1 odds.
Instead of looking at stats, she just thought about who might win.
She managed to be on the right side of 14 games and picked the correct over in the Steelers-Broncos
game.
For the last parlay game, Polia listed the Lions as a three-point underdog to the Saints.
The Lions won 35 to 27.
When she found out she won, she fell to the floor at work.
Polia is a lifelong sports fan and has a Celtics tattoo on her hip to prove it.
After this win, she plans to make Las Vegas a pit stop on the way to her dream beach house
in California.
1 - Phil Mickelson In mid-2001, Phil Mickelson focused on who
would win Super Bowl 36.
Mickelson is an avid sports fan and better, who took home $440,000 after placing a $20,000
futures bet at the previous super bowl.
He put his money on the Baltimore Ravens winning Super Bowl 35.
Mickelson said he saw the Ravens as Superbowl champions when asked how he made the winning
bet.
They had the best defense in history plus a speedy offense.
He brought his wife, parents, and in-laws to watch him cash his winning ticket for $440,000.
And he planned to do it again.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
And let us know in the comment section would you rather: take a 60% chance to win $1000
dollars but 40% chance to lose $1000, or would you rather take a guaranteed loss of $50 dollars?