The saying and movie title “Any Given Sunday” has been the theme of the 2022/2023 NFL season. Teams have been heavily favored and came out just to get decimated. With the opening “Wild Card Weekend” of playoff games kicking off, many were wondering how things would go.
As the Los Angeles Chargers rolled into Jacksonville, FL to take on the Jaguars, they kicked the game off as slight favorites to win. When halftime hit, they were up 27-0. The sports books and gambling websites were making the Chargers heavy favorites to win the game. With DraftKings offering -12,500 odds, a bettor would need to wager $12,500 to win $100 profit.
Odds like these can encourage many to take those long odds at what they consider to be a sure-fire easy payday. One bettor said, “hold my beer” and decided to go after that line hard. According to the bet slip as obtained by Bleacher Report and confirmed by ESPN, someone wagered $1.4 million for the Chargers to hold the lead.
Even with a bet this big there wasn’t much to gain comparatively. A whopping $11,200 would have been the prize for making a wager this large. While these kinds of large bets have paid off, sometimes the wagers are incredibly extreme. Earlier this year, someone took the Indianapolis Colts to beat the Minnesota Vikings when they were up 33-0 at the half. This $1,800 bet would have won $9 if the Colts had held on, but they lost 39-36.
With the Jaguars battling back to win 31-30, they are now the 3rd largest comeback victory in NFL playoff history. For the bettor, this is likely one of their worst bets of the year.
And with so many wild card teams progressing, who knows what Super Bowl bets will end up looking like.
