A $3.1m-wager on the Eagles to beat the Panthers this weekend falls near the top of all-time bets on the NFL. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
Moving the lines
$1m might seem like a lot to bet on a sporting event, but a bettor in Kentucky felt like it wasn’t enough. A Circa Sports bettor originally plunked down a cool million on the Philadelphia Eagles to beat the Carolina Panthers this coming Sunday, but then asked the sportsbook if they could bet more, eventually increasing their wager to $3.1m. The bet, which would net nearly $443,000, is believed to be one of the largest to ever be placed on an NFL regular season game.
The bettor placed the wager with Circa Sports Thursday afternoon at -700 odds, which rocketed the Philadelphia line to -870 and took Carolina to +650 as soon as Friday morning.
go to work and get some buyback on the Panthers”
On Friday, Circa Sports owner Derek Stevens told ESPN: “I told my guys in the risk room to go to work and get some buyback on the Panthers. With us being in five states now, we should have the liquidity to get enough buyback to where we end up needing the Eagles.”
Circa sportsbook director Jeff Benson told ESPN by email: “We currently have the best Panthers [money-line] price on the board and will be big Bryce Young fans on Sunday.”
“Eagles-Panthers is our most-bet game of the weekend, and it’s been largely one-way traffic with 70% of spread handle and 80% of money-line handle on Philly,” added ESPN BET’s director of North American sports trading Adrian Horton. “We opened the game at -12.5, and it’s still moving in the Eagles’ direction, now at -13 on Friday morning.”
Largest bets ever placed on the NFL
ESPN called the $3.1m bet “one of the largest ever placed on an NFL regular-season contest.” Competing for the top spot is a bettor at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas who wagered $1m on the L.A. Rams +3 against the Eagles (that bet lost, as the Rams got blitzed, 37-20).
Two seasons ago, a bettor famously lost a $1.4m live money-line wager on the L.A. Chargers vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars when the Chargers blew a 27-0 lead in the AFC Wild Card game. The line at the time was -12,500 and would have paid out just $11,200.
Not everyone was upset about the Jags’ comeback, though:
The bets get even bigger when looking at the Super Bowl. Billy Walters, an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, New York Times best-selling author, and one of the most successful American sports bettors of all time, was reported to have put $6m on the New Orleans Saints against the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. The Saints won 31-17 as 5-point underdogs.
In addition, Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale – considered to be the world’s most successful sports bettor of all time – has made wild wagers in conjunction with promotions at his Houston furniture store. While his most notable bets have been on the Houston Astros to win the World Series, he did bet (and lost) $2m on the Dallas Cowboys to beat the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL playoffs two seasons ago.
