By Paulina Cachero
A lucky fan won a $579,020 payout from a $20 parlay bet predicting the final scores of Sunday’s NFL championship games.
The bettor correctly guessed that the Cincinnati Bengals would beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27 -24 in the American Conference championship and that the Los Angeles Rams would outlast the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in the National Conference title match. The probability of doing so: 0.03%, or three times in 10,000 tries.
Kevin Hennessy, a spokesperson for FanDuel sports book, confirmed that the customer received the cash prize Sunday night, adding that two others won big with similar exact-score parlay bets. One gambler turned a $5 wager into $145,000, while another made $58,000 with a $2 bet.
“It’s truly amazing to see a customer pick the exact score of both conference championship games,” Hennessy said. “We had some very happy customers last night.”
At least 30 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned laws prohibiting such wagering in most states in 2018, according to the American Gaming Association.
The legalization has sparked a boom in the U.S. sports betting industry, with $666.1 million in revenue from football wagering generated in November alone, the highest monthly total ever and an 113% increase from a year earlier, according to the AGA. The sports betting market overall raked in $1.6 billion in revenue last year, according to research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.
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