On Monday morning, a bettor with the Twitter handle @Gambleballs posted two winning Super Bowl bets that, when combined, amount to an unreal six-figure longshot score.
A $10,000 ticket on the Chiefs to score exactly 31 points in Super Bowl LIV, which cashed at 16-1 odds, and a $3,500 ticket by the same bettor on the 49ers to score exactly 20 points that paid out at 20-1 odds.
Add it all up, and this bettor, who placed the wagers at Circa Sportsbook in Las Vegas, netted $230,000 with the 31-20 Chiefs victory over the 49ers.
Now for some history…
Prior to last night, only 43 NFL games had ended in a score of 31-20. It's happened twice in the postseason and twice in the last 800 games. It strangely happened twice on the same day: Sept. 16, 2018, when the Jaguars beat the Patriots and the Chargers beat the Bills by the same score.
Before last night, there were 120 scores in NFL that happened more than 31-20.
So why was this bettor so bullish on these two individual outcomes occurring?
The bettor himself didn't want to talk, so to break it down, we talked to Matt Metcalf, sportsbook director of the Circa, which currently operates out of the Golden Gate Hotel.
Metcalf says he’s known the bettor for a while. The two used to be pros together, particularly focusing on getting the best NASCAR odds around Vegas.
Metcalf says he doesn’t know specifically, but guesses that the bettor had bet in between 20 and 25 numbers and certainly didn’t spend $230,000, which were his winnings.
“He does his own work and takes larger shots on the numbers he thinks we missed,” Metcalf said. “Like on Chiefs 31. I probably had it at true odds of about 20-1 and took our cut and brought it to 16-1. He might have had the value for him to be 12-1.”
Although 31-20 has only happened in 0.25% of NFL games, the number 31 had been scored five times in prior Super Bowls (5 out of 106 results) — that’s 4.7%. The number 20 is a bit less likely, but happened more in Super Bowls than regular games (2 out of 106) — that’s 1.9%.
“A $10,000 bet on a single number seems like a huge bet, but it’s actually not to a pro with a bankroll like his,” he said.
To give you a sense for just how much money a pro bettor like @Gambleballs is throwing down on the Super Bowl, he tweeted that he actually lost money on the game, despite profiting $230,000 on these two bets.
Circa — which will open later this year in Vegas, and promises to have the largest sportsbook in the world — has been on a mission to develop a brand by setting the lines first and not being scared to take professional money.
“We want to write more business,” Metcalf said. “We want to let it be known that we will take $10,000 bets on a correct score prop.”
The 31-20 result and the $230,000 payout meant that, at least this time, Metcalf didn’t write enough business to have the correct score business wind up a money-maker for Circa, but through the victory, the world now knows that the sportsbook isn’t scared to take big wagers on bets like this.
