Another week, another tale of a large bet landed in the US. This one had a beautiful narrative about it. A twenty something teacher placed a bet of $90,818.19 on Morocco advancing to the quarter finals of the World Cup with Fan Duel to win a straight million dollars. There are some fascinating details to the bet.
The bettor apparently knew nothing about Morocco. He just felt they would be good value. He was offered the chance to hedge out for a $225k profit but turned it down. Prop Swap valued it at $218k. He could have hedged by backing Spain pre match but that would only have seen a profit of $136k using Fan Duels prices. He did eventually place a hedge bet when it went to penalties backing Spain for $150k. Luckily he was on a break from his class when penalties happened. Luckily he had $150k sat in his account to be able to place the hedge bet.
The $150k and original $90k were just part of his bankroll. He withdrew it all. After this win. He calls himself just a regular degenerate gambler who had hit a few big parlays previously. So many questions. So many. Even if the teacher had a bankroll of say $2m then this is an incredibly punchy bet on something he claims to know literally nothing about. His balance on the account was at least $240k before placing the bets. He then withdrew everything apparently. Really? I could understand a big withdrawal but not everything unless the account was closed. Why not withdraw everything last time? Its not easy to deposit large sums at the drop of a hat. Just strange.
The biggest part of the story undoubtedly though is that someone was able to place the bet to win a million dollars on that sort of market. The huge majority of punters are limited to significantly lower limits unless of course the bookmaker thinks you are a complete mug. That you are a complete mug who resides in mugsville doing the muggiest of mug bets. Bookmakers like FanDuel have no interest in taking on anyone who could be regarded as even a remotely winning punter. They only take a bet like that if you are viewed as a complete mug.
It raises two other interesting points at this stage. Maybe the account was being operated by someone else (a beard). Who knows but it would make more sense than a teacher placing that bet. The other issue is what we see in the UK with regard to responsible gambling/crime. Lets say the said teacher has placed bets previously that have won on FD and he has a very large balance. Let’s say $1m. We are supposed to believe that he would then place a bet for $90k on something at that price. Bear in mind he withdrew everything after this bet won but not before?
If he didn’t have a large balance and had deposited the money etc to place the bet it should really be setting off all sorts of alarm bells. Banks hate gambling transactions at the best of times let alone for six figures. Where is a teacher getting this sort of money from? Certainly in the UK bookmakers use source of wealth checks a lot. I don’t know if they do in the USA. They are part of the anti Money Laundering checks here (AML). A six figure deposit would see certain questions asked.
Let’s assume the punter did hit a big score from a relatively small outlay as was claimed. It’s a big leap to go from small outlay accas to suddenly smashing in $90k on straight bets on to qualify markets. Maybe there were quite a few large losing muggy bets in between. I guess the point is that this story paints so many of the negative aspects of the industry.
Unachievable/misleading aspirations. Either the punter was a complete mug who had lost fortunes or would likely do so soon or someone else was using their account. We have seen it for many years when large bets have been reported in the UK media. I used to be very sceptical of them as I knew some weren’t true. Imagine a bookie not being truthful. Nowadays I think most are true and are clearly just used as PR for Fan Duel in this instance.
However, it raises that incredibly ugly elephant in the room where the only people actually able to place these types of bets are those regarded as complete mugs/massive losers. Yes let’s celebrate the ridiculous situation of the modern bookmaking world. In this instance it feels like there has to be more to the story that we are not being told.
I can only apologise if I am doing a disservice to a big winning punter being able to place $90k bets on markets they have no idea about. Darren Rovell gets all the scoops as a bookie mouthpiece.
ProPunting 