Larry Brown Sports

A woman who filled out a 15-team parlay card through the Red Rock casino in Las Vegas, Nev., reportedly turned $5 into nearly $100,000 over the past football weekend.

The woman, who according to Dave Tuley wished to be anonymous, bet the parlay card on Friday. Her card included two college football games — Nebraska at Michigan State, and San Diego State +15 — in addition to the entire NFL slate on Sunday and Monday night’s game. She caught a nice break in the Michigan State game, which isn’t surprising; one would need a lot of luck in order to hit a 15-teamer.

This woman wasn’t the only person to cash in big over the weekend.

According to Beyond the Bets, a Bet Online user hit two big parlays to make over $65,000 last weekend.

Here were that person’s bets, per Beyond the Bets:

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Everyone loves an underdog, but sometimes it pays to play the favorites. A gambler who places wagers through BetOnline.ag was apparently feeling lucky last week, but in a way he could make the argument that he was simply playing the odds. According to Beyond the Bets, this risk-taker decided to place $100 on a 23-team football parlay with a potential payout of $25,772. He won.

Anyone who gambles on sports can tell you how difficult it is to win a parlay. Whether it be two teams or 10 teams, there’s a reason the payouts are so large. However, this gambler apparently decided that there’s also a reason certain teams are favored in Las Vegas. He included 21 college football favorites, one NFL favorite and one college football underdog in his wager.

The lone underdog was Kansas State on the road against West Virginia, where the Wildcats pulled off an upset and destroyed the Mountaineers by a score of 55-14. The only NFL team included was the 49ers, who the mystery bettor apparently felt confident in at home against the Seahawks. The list of the other 21 NCAA favorites can be seen here.

The favorites are favored for a reason, and one person is now more than $25,000 wealthier because of it. That being said, the people who have hit it big with all the crazy sports bets we’ve featured over the years here at LBS are tough to come by. That certainly isn’t a coincidence.

H/T The Big Lead

Amid the influx of horror stories we have heard about replacement officials and how awful they were for the game of football, there is at least one story that sticks out from all the rest. By blowing one of the biggest calls in NFL history and essentially handing the Seahawks a win over the Packers last week, the NFL’s replacement refs changed the lives of Branford, Ontario’s Geno DiFelice.

Heading into the Monday night game last weekend, DiFelice was a perfect 14-for-14 on his Ontario Loterry (Proline) NFL picks sheet. When the officials infamously ruled that Golden Tate had simultaneous possession of a pass that Packers safety M.D. Jennings appeared to have intercepted, DiFelice won $725,274.

“I still can’t believe it,” DiFelice said Monday according to the Toronto Sun. “It’s funny when you think of it. It’s unbelievable.”

DiFelice’s winnings are the third-highest payout in Proline history. No, he’s not some gambling guru. In fact, the ticket he filled out himself without any advice only had four picks right. It turns out Geno can thank his daughter for the fortune he just won.

“Every week I do a ticket with my picks, and then I ask my kids (Mia, 12 and Marco, 10) who they like,” he explained. “I do one ticket each with their picks. The winner was the ticket my daughter consulted me on. The funniest part is, the ticket I made all of the picks myself, I only got four right.”

Some of the earnings better go into Mia’s college fund. DiFelice said he only watched the last 1:48 of the game because he was so nervous, and he stayed up for five hours afterward waiting to hear what he had won. If the Packers had won, he would have had to split the winnings with five others.

While the blown call may have changed the season for Seattle and Green Bay and cost other gamblers hundreds of millions, it ultimately put over $500,000 in the pocket of one lucky man in Canada.

A father’s confidence in his son’s soccer-playing ability paid off in a big way on Wednesday.

According to The Guardian, Mick Tunnicliffe placed a bet 10 years ago that his son would one day play for Manchester United. Tunnicliffe wagered £100 and received 100-1 odds that his son, Ryan (pictured), who was nine years old at the time, would eventually play for the Reds.

Ryan, who is now 19 and a midfielder, entered as a substitute in the 77th minute of Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Newcastle United Wednesday.

No doubt his father Mick was cheering louder than any of the other 46,357 fans in attendance.

As odd as this betting story sounds, it’s actually not too unusual in Europe where sports books will take action on almost anything you can think of. According to reports, Rory McIlroy’s father stands to make £200,000 if his son can win The Open Championship next year thanks to a bet he and friends made several years ago.

The opening week of college football is typically filled with upsets, mainly because not even bookmakers know what to expect from certain teams who have lost players and are bringing in new recruits. One of the bigger upsets of the weekend came when little-known Texas State threw a 31-10 beating on Houston. The Cougars went 13-1 last season and easily defeated Penn State in the TicketCity Bowl, so very few expected Texas State to come out on top. As always, there was at least one fortune teller who predicted the outcome.

According to VegasInsider.com, William Hill was one of the few sports books to offer a money line on the Houston-Texas State game and gave Texas State 35-to-1 odds. One brave bettor decided to throw $3,000 on Texas State and was likely quite pleased when the risk turned into $105,000.

Either he or she was feeling very lucky or just has a lot of money to throw around. Unlike the woman who reportedly won an astronomical amount of money by betting 10 cents on a horse race or the guy who won thousands by betting $70 on Ernie Els, $3,000 is a lot of money to risk on something that is in all likelihood not going to happen. A lot of people say you have to bet big to win big, and I guess that’s exactly what the Texas State supporter decided to do. Smart bet? I think not. Amazing result? Absolutely.

H/T Eye on College Football

Adam Scott collapsed so badly at the British Open on Sunday that his name was already stenciled on a piece of championship hardware before the tournament ended. But it wasn’t all for none. When Scott birdied the 14th hole, the betting odds for him to win the tournament skyrocketed to -7000. That means he had a 98% of winning with four holes remaining and Ernie Els, who was in second place and trailed by four shots, had virtually no chance.

According to WagerMinds.com, at least one bettor wasn’t prepared to give up on Els at that point and decided to make a wager to prove it. Els was an incredible 469-to-1 underdog heading into the 15th hole, and the bettor placed $70 on Els to take home the trophy. As we know, Ernie erased the four-stroke lead and went on to win. His victory reportedly netted the gutsy gambler $32,830.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — the fact that he won doesn’t make it a smart bet. Every year we see bettors who win incredible amounts of money on miraculous comebacks or long-shot horses, but wagers of this nature happen all the time and are usually guaranteed money for the house. Something tells me the person who won over $32,000 on Sunday doesn’t care if their bet was intelligent or not.

When I’ll Have Another was retired the day before the Belmont Stakes earlier this month because of tendinitis, horse racing enthusiasts were extremely disappointed. After winning both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness (in a photo finish), I’ll Have Another had a shot at the coveted Triple Crown. While the horse’s trainer, Doug O’Neill, was likely devastated when he got the news that I’ll Have Another could no longer race, at least he had $20,000 to help ease the pain.

Back in February, one day before I’ll Have Another’s 2012 debut and three months before the Kentucky Derby, O’Neill wagered $100 on his own horse to win the race. Since I’ll Have Another was far from a household name at that time, the odds at Lucky’s Race and Sports Book in Nevada were 200-1. O’Neill thought he had a winner, so he went with his gut and wound up $20,000 richer because of it.

However, O’Neill is facing a fine of $15,000 in California for an elevated carbon dioxide violation — his third in the state — along with a 45-day suspension starting July 1. At least his gut instinct may have saved him from having to pay the fine out of pocket.

O’Neill cashed the ticket in person Monday at the Lucky’s betting parlor inside the Primm Valley Resort and Casino at the Nevada-California state line. O’Neill posed for pictures with surprised patrons and signed the winning ticket (pictured), which Lucky’s marketing director Dan Shaprio put out on Twitter.