Famed gambler Jim ‘Mattress Mack’ McIngvale is a diehard Houston Astros fan but he had even more reason to celebrate when his team won the World Series on Saturday night.
McIngvale had placed a number of bets adding up to around $10m on the Astros to take the World Series, which meant he netted $75m when Houston closed out the championship with victory over the Philadelphia Phillies at Minute Maid Park.
The sum is believed to be the largest payout in the history of sports betting. McIngvale placed an initial bet of $3m on the Astros to win the title at 10-1 in May and then made further stakes as the Major League Baseball season continued.
“What can we say? We just wrote the biggest check in sports betting history to Mattress Mack for $30m,” said Ken Fuchs, chief operating officer for Caesars Digital, the company with whom McIngvale made the original bet.
The 71-year-old will not see much of his winnings: he regularly uses bets to offset promotions at his chain of furniture stores. This year, he offered any customer who spent more than $3,000 double their money back if the Astros won the title.
“Whatever we can do to make people’s lives better even if it’s through this magical game of baseball, we will,” McIngvale told Fox 26 on Saturday.
McIngvale lost $9.5m betting on the Cincinnati Bengals to win last season’s Super Bowl. However, he sold $20m worth of furniture on a promotion based around the Bengals wager.
