Patrick Everson
FOX Sports Betting Analyst
The parlay heard around the world hit X (formerly known as Twitter) on Friday morning.
All you need to get there: Ohio State winning the 12-team College Football Playoff, which isn’t unreasonable. And the bet is possibly the craziest you’ll ever see: 85 cents on a 14-match parlay.
It’s a mix of March Madness, the NBA All-Star Game, NBA and NHL futures, along with UFC and boxing results. It is crowned by the national champion of college football.
When the CFP begins, the first 13 games are already set. The bettor only needs Ohio State to win it all: $147,507.44.
Unless the bettor sells his ticket first. It is currently included in PropSwap, a secondary market specialized in the sale of tickets for sports betting. Think StubHub, but for sports betting, and typically for futures and parlay betting.
PropSwap founder and CEO Luke Pergande found the ticket surprising, to say the least.
“It’s the best bet I’ve seen this year. Eighty-five cents buys literally nothing in this economy,” Pergande told FOX Sports.
Pocket Change Parlay
On February 12, a FanDuel Sportsbook customer, who may have only had 85 cents in his account, decided to use that couch cushion money in the wildest way possible.
The parlay opened by taking the NBA All-Star Game Over, with a total of 363.5 points. That was one of the easier games, as the East beat the West 211-186, for a total of 397 points.
So the first leg was ready. But there are 13 more games left? Oh really?
However, one after another, over the next three months, the parlay lived on.
Takuma Inoue scored a ninth-round knockout over Jerwin Ancajas in a WBA title fight on February 24. UConn then won the NCAA men’s basketball championship on April 8.
April 13 was an especially key day, the end of the NBA regular season. Five stages of this bettor’s parlay depended on the division champions, and he got them all right:
- Milwaukee Bucks will win the Central Division
- Orlando Magic will win the Southeast Division
- Los Angeles Clippers will win the Pacific Division
- Dallas Mavericks will win the Southwest Division
- Oklahoma City will win the Northwest Division
There was some serious sweating in that part of the parlay. Oklahoma City and Denver tied with straight wins (SU) 57-25, but the Thunder won the tiebreaker. Milwaukee, Orlando and Dallas won their respective divisions by one game.
Los Angeles finished two games ahead of Phoenix.
Hockey Night/Fight Nights
It then moved on to the NHL division winners on April 15:
- New York Rangers will win the Metropolitan Division
- Vancouver Canucks will win the Pacific Division
A trio of favorable boxing results followed. On April 21, Ryan Garcia, a +440 underdog, scored a majority decision victory over WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney.
In an IBF lightweight title fight on May 12, Vasyl Lomachenko earned a TKO against George Kambosos Jr. And on May 18, Oleksandr Usyk won a split decision against Tyson Fury in a battle for the undisputed title heavyweight.
There are 13 legs.
Since then, seven months and counting, it has been a time of hurrying and waiting. Ohio State is the final stretch. The Buckeyes host Tennessee in the first round of the CFP, kicking off Saturday at 8 pm ET.
Ohio State Buckeyes: How will Ryan Day approach the game plan against Tennessee?
Four games left
It is true that there is still a considerable distance to travel. Ohio State is No. 8 in the 12-team field. If the Buckeyes win on Saturday night, then they will face No. 1 seed Oregon in the Rose Bowl for the quarterfinals on Jan. 1.
It’s a rematch of an exciting regular season game. The Ducks were underdogs at home by 3.5 points and cruised to a 32-31 win in Week 7.
If Ohio State wins the rematch, Texas could be waiting in the Cotton Bowl semifinals. At the moment, Caesars Sports has Oregon and Texas as the +350 co-favorites to win the National Championship.
Georgia is the +475 third choice to win the College Football Playoff, followed by Ohio State at +490. If the Buckeyes make it to the national title game on Jan. 20, Georgia could be waiting there.
Even if the bettor sells his ticket (potentially for $13,000 or more), he will do very well with the 85 cent investment. And the new owner still stands to make a mountain of money for Ohio State.
So buckle up for what could be a very entertaining ride.
Patrick Everson is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and a senior reporter for VegasInsider.com. He is a distinguished journalist in the national sports betting field. He lives in Las Vegas, where he likes to play golf in 110-degree heat. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickE_Vegas
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