Last November a young guy strolls into The Sportsbook at the Westgate in Las Vegas and places two wagers on the outcome of this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, aka ‘March Madness’. First he bet Wisconsin at 100-1. His other wager was on the Red Raiders from Texas Tech to win it all. Texas Tech had opened at 40-1 but, lack of action saw that number fall all the way to 200-1.
Obviously this guy was not attending his first rodeo here. He was already known at The Sportsbook as a high roller futures player. When he placed his wager on Texas Tech he had to settle for a $1500 wager, although he wanted to bet more. Westgates’ John Murray said no because, “He is a well known player who takes a lot of futures positions with us”. As the odds on the Red Raiders were then at 200-1, Mr. Murry said, “No, I think to win $300,000 is pretty good”.
Fast forward to March this year. Four months have passed and, against the odds, Texas Tech will be playing for the National Championship against the Cavaliers of the University of Virginia at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Monday evening. That little prop slip has evolved into quite the hot ticket of the tourney. Dez Bryant offered the guy $50,000 for the prop, he said no, thank you.
However, the bettor did post his prop slip on a site called ‘PropSwap’ where, after beating Michigan State on Saturday, someone offered him a cool $125,000! Once again, the bettor declined the offer and held onto his golden ticket. Give the guy credit for sticking to his guns, and having a lot of guts.
PropSwap is a relatively new site which serves as a secondary marketplace for sports betting futures tickets. Anyone with what they believe to be a valuable ticket can post it on PropSwap and have folks bid on it. The bids are non binding and the seller has the right to decline any offer at any time.
Regardless of how the game comes out, this bettor will likely never forget this particular wager. Either he walks away with three hundred grand, or he laments the $125,000 that he turned down. This guy is a real player.
Although the bettor prefers to remain anonymous, he did an interview in which he claimed that wagering on sports is just a hobby that he started some eight years ago for fun. He especially likes to wager on college basketball futures bets because of the large variety of teams and the long odds available.
Texas Tech held the Michigan State Wolverines to only 51 points in Final Four action and looked very strong indeed. No wonder this guy won’t sell his golden ticket, at any price!
