Every now and then you hear about wild sports bet. Someone puts down millions of dollars in hopes to cash out on something even more ludicrous.
Usually, that guy you hear about is Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, an owner of a successful retail furniture chain by day and a famous sports bettor by night.
Known for his big wagers (that essentially act as entertaining insurance policies against his retail promos), McIngvale wants his way to become more common throughout the sports betting industry. And for that, sportsbooks need to quit limiting bets.
Per Geoff Zochodne at Covers.com:
“The industry needs to go up as far as what you’re going to take, not down,” McIngvale said Wednesday at the SBC Summit North America conference in New Jersey.
…A recurring topic of conversation amid the expansion of retail and online sports betting in the United States and Canada has been about operators limiting the amount of money that successful players can wager. McIngvale told the audience at the SBC conference about placing a $200,000 bet on the Texas Longhorns to win the 2005 Rose Bowl, which he doubted would now be accepted.
Even some of the massive wagers that Mack has recently made were made up of several smaller bets. And McIngvale (who was wearing cowboy boots and a custom Astros jersey) suggested Wednesday that bookmakers should figure out how to manage their businesses accordingly so they can survive the odd hot streak.
“I think winners are the best advertising in the world,” he told ESPN reporter David Purdum, who moderated the session.
To simplify — McIngvale wants bigger bets. Bigger wagers could lead to both bigger payouts and bigger losses. The fear from many sportsbooks comes from sharp bettors who historically place large wagers with a high win rate.
In other words, the exact type of bettors DraftKings CEO Jason Robins once said he doesn’t want to do business with.
Either way, the huge bets draw the attention of others, which is good for advertising at a time when marketing budgets are expected to slow down with wild promos to attract new customers.
