Putting his money where his fandom is
The 2022 Major League Baseball World Series kicks off on Friday, as the Houston Astros take on the Philadelphia Phillies. In terms of baseball history, it is pretty significant. Houston is aiming to cement itself as the dynasty nobody notices (aside from the cheating scandal from a few years ago): this is the franchise’s fourth World Series in six years and would be its second championship, should the Astros win. Philly snuck into the playoffs as the last wild card team and are in their first World Series since 2009. But for some, the real story of the World Series is Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, who stands to win the largest payout in sports betting history if the Astros win.
McIngvale has about $10 million in bets riding on the Astros at average odds of 7.5-1, which would give him a $75 million payout should the Astros – who are the favorites – win the World Series.
As the above implies, McIngvale didn’t make one $10 million, but rather a series of bets. The ones we know about for sure were placed back in May: a $3 million wager with Caesars at +1,000 and a $1 million bet with WynnBet at +1,200.
Huge marketing promotion
Yes, McIngvale is rich and yes, he is a huge Houston Astros fan, but this isn’t just a matter of a rich, old guy going gambling crazy. It’s fun for him, but it is also a marketing ploy for his Gallery Furniture business. If the Astros win, Gallery Furniture customers get loads of free furniture.
He told Furniture Today that the promotion has generated $70 million in sales.
Around the time of his May bets, the promotion on the Gallery Furniture site stated that anyone who bought “qualifying” items totaling $3,000 more would receive double their money back if the Astros won the World Series. It is too late to enter the promotion now that the Astros are actually in the Fall Classic (we are not sure when the promotion closed to new entries). Thus, McIngvale will hit a betting windfall if his Astros are the champs, but he will also give away tons (literally) of furniture.
“I just get bored to death with stability, which is why I guess I like all of these big bets,” he told ESPN before the playoffs started. “I thrive on chaos.”
Do we have our next Joker?
But how much did you lose?
The first time McIngvale ran this sort of betting promotion was in 2014, when the Denver Broncos faced the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Two of his employees were convinced that the Seahawks couldn’t beat Peyton Manning’s Broncos, so McIngvale announced that if the Seahawks did win, customers would get their furniture for free.
“I didn’t hedge anything on this at all,” he said, “and it really got away from me in the last three or four days.”
That’s right, he didn’t place any bets on the game. The Seahawks won and Mattress Mack was out $9 million.
His big betting results haven’t been all that great lately. He lost about $4.5 million betting on the Cincinnati Bengals to win the Super Bowl, lost $2.6 million on the Kentucky Derby, and $6.1 million when Georgia beat Alabama in the college football title game. He did, however, profit over $10.5 million by picking Kansas to win March Madness prior to the Final Four.
