A sports bettor is "nervous as hell" and watching the NBA Playoffs with a close eye on a potential life-changing parlay made, showing the power of the sports betting sector.
What Happened: The NBA Playoffs are in full swing. Teams are playing in the second round and trying to advance to the NBA Championship.
The Oklahoma City Thunder ended the regular season as the number-one seed in the Western Conference with a 57-25 record. The team tied for second-best record in the NBA, and for the second-best home record (33-8) for the season.
Wayne Shelton, a bettor and Arizona-based real estate business owner, is one of the biggest Thunder fans this year.
The single father placed a $100 parlay bet with sports betting platform DraftKings Inc DKNG on May 1, 2023. The bet, which included a 50% parlay boost, included three sports championships combined. For the ticket to cash out, all three legs have to be correct.
The Texas Rangers and Kansas City Chiefs won the World Series and Super Bowl, respectively, in the last year to nail the first two legs of the best. The Rangers had odds of 22-to-1 and the Chiefs had odds of 6-to-1 at the time of the bet.
The selection of the Thunder was the biggest underdog. The team had odds of 70-to-1 to win the NBA Championship before the 2023-2024 NBA season started.
Together, the three-leg parlay with boosted odds will pay out $1,714,600 if the Thunder win.
The Thunder beat the New Orleans Pelicans in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs and are currently tied 1-1 in the second-round series with the Dallas Mavericks.
Prior to Thursday night's Game 2, which was won by the Mavericks, Shelton was faced with a cash out option of $100,706.56, up from around $75,000 offered after the Thunder won their opening round series.
Shelton often bets on futures, or sports outcomes that are months away and often center around championship winners.
"I bet all the major sports for all the futures, divisions, whatever. And the whole idea is I'll invest a decent amount, but now I get to enjoy the entire season as a sports bettor without having to put more money down. I can enjoy what I invested and enjoy every game because they all matter," Shelton told ESPN.
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What's Next: Shelton told ESPN that he's "nervous as hell" and has become a huge supporter of the Thunder. He even attended game 1 of the second round of the NBA Playoffs, which was the first NBA Playoff game he's ever been to.
According to ESPN has a hedge bet placed on the Mavericks to win the series that would pay out $10,000 if the Thunder lose the second round. Shelton plans to put a hedge bet on each round of the NBA Playoffs.
Shelton claims to have gotten several $100,000 or more offers from secondary trading platforms who have reached out about the bet. WagerWire valued the ticket at $228,613 after game one of the second round.
If he wins his bet, Shelton plans on taking a vacation and hopes to meet someone famous.
To win the bet, there's still more basketball to be played. If the Thunder advance past the Mavericks, they will face the winner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets. The Timberwolves lead the series 2-0 and have been hot in the postseason.
On the other side of the bracket, a potential finals matchup could be against the Boston Celtics, who are the one-seed in the Eastern Conference and have the best overall record.
Current betting odds on DraftKings sees the Celtics as the favorite at -110 to win the NBA Championship, followed by Minnesota (+285) and Oklahoma City (+750).
After tying the series, the Mavericks are now favorites to win the second-round series with the Thunder at odds of -120. The Thunder pay out at odds of +100 if they advance to the third round.
The remaining games in the Thunder and Mavericks series will air on ESPN, ANBC and TNT starting with Game 3 on May 11, with The Walt Disney Company DIS and Warner Bros. Discovery WBD sharing rights to the NBA Playoffs.
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