If players think winning the Open Championship is a longshot at best, how about picking nine winners on a first-round, three-way betting ticket.
Well, one bettor did just that and turned an $8 bet into almost $17,000 at a BetMGM property in Virginia.
If you’re reading this and bet on sports, you know picking winners isn’t an exact science. That’s one of the reasons there are so many lights burning brightly up and down the famed Las Vegas Strip.
In golf, it can be that much tougher to pick winners as there are so many variables that can come into play. For one thing, golfers can’t play defense. You can play a great round of golf but if someone in your betting matchup plays better, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.
And don’t get us started on the weather possibilities.
Beating The Odds Not Easy 1-on-1
When it’s a head-to-head bet, one would think you’d have a 50-50 chance of winning. You would be wrong. Sometimes players in matchups are better simply players coming into an event and that’s why sportsbooks put up plus/minus odds and adjust them according to many factors.
Add in a second team/player and the odds go up considerably. And those odds keep getting exponentially tougher the more teams/players you add in.
In other words, these bets don’t pay off that often which is why they are looked at as sucker bets for a reason. And it’s also a reason stories like this one exist for the times when bettors do get to strut their stuff and cash in.
But This Parlay Paid Off Big
And one bettor is doing just that. He (or she) plunked down $8 on a nine-player parlay at BetMGM. The bettor put down the money on three-way betting options, picking one player to beat two others, for the first day of the Open Championship.
The bet came in at around 2,100-to-1 and earned the bettor $16,922.
And it’s not like he picked all the big-name players in the field. Sure, he had Jordan Spieth at +140 over Bryson DeChambeau and Branden Grace as well as Paul Casey at +150 over Abraham Ancer and Ian Poulter.
But he also had Guido Migliozzi at +165 over Kevin Streelman and Victor Perez. Raise your hand if you knew Migliozzi was even a pro golfer let alone qualified for the Open Championship.
We thought so.
And the bet could have paid off even more as only eight of the betting legs were winners. The ninth wound up as a push dropping the bet down to an eight-teamer.
Joaquin Niemann, the bettor’s pick, was going up against Daniel Berger and Joel Dahmen. Niemann birdied two of his last three holes to tie Dahmen for the low score in the three-man group (Berger shot a 70) making it a push and knocking the ticket down to an eight-way bet.
Or, and here’s the worst-case scenario, it could have not paid off at all except for Niemann’s impressive finish and earning a push on one leg.
A Look At The Big-Money Ticket
Andy Sullivan, at +175, over Bland and Armitage
Justin Harding at +150 over Kim and Li
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano at +200 over Lorenzo-Vera and Gallegos
Viktor Hovland at +115 over Palmer and Detry
Paul Casey at +150 over Ancer and Poulter
Lucas Herbert at +140 over Burns and Campillo
Joaquin Niemann at +150 over Berger and Dahmen (tie)
Jordan Spieth at +140 over DeChambeau and Grace
Guido Migliozzi at +165 over Streelman and Perez
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