Jim McIngvale couldn't believe his eyes on Sunday.
Fresh off the Houston Astros making the World Series, the lines were out the door on Saturday and Sunday at his Gallery Furniture stores in Houston.
"People were begging us to buy a mattress because they want it to be free," said McIngvale, affectionately known as "Mattress Mack." "There's a foam shortage, so we don't have the variety we usually have, but people are willing to buy anything."
As has become an annual tradition, Mack's stores offer mattresses for free on purchases of $3,000 if the Astros win the World Series. Since no insurance company will back him at the revenue he pulls in, he hedges the promotion by betting on the Astros to win it all.
Counting the roughly $5.9 million in gross mattress sales from this past weekend, Mack says his liability is in the "mid 20-millions."
"My wife is going through the numbers now," he told The Action Network. "She's getting nervous."
Mack bet a total of $3.5 million to win $35.6 million if the Astros won the World Series. If it wins, it will be the largest payout in legal gambling history, including a $2 million bet with Caesars that would yield $20 million.
After the Astros won the AL pennant, he engaged with Caesars and FanDuel, who he has $1 million bet with at 10/1, and asked what their buyouts would be.
"FanDuel offered me $5.5 million," Mack said. "Caesars said it was their policy not to do cashouts."
His response?
Said Mack: "If this was a regular bet, I might take it, but I have too much involved in the Astros right now."
