InvincibleCakeEater wrote:Jocephus wrote:A Houston furniture salesman, attempting to mitigate millions of dollars in potential refunds from a promotion, placed one of the largest bets ever taken by a U.S. bookmaker on Tuesday at a Mississippi sportsbook.
Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston, bet $3.5 million on the Houston Astros to win the World Series at the DraftKings sportsbook at Scarlet Pearl casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. At +220 odds, the wager would pay a net $7.7 million if the Astros win the World Series.
https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/2 ... rld-series
Would be a lot more impressive if it wasn't just a hedge.
he seems like a pretty nice/cool old man
he did it last year also (also from the article)...
For much of the baseball season, McIngvale has been offering to refund mattress-related purchases of $3,000 or more if the Astros win the World Series. He ran a similar promotion in 2017 and refunded more than $10 million in purchases when Houston beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the franchise's first World Series. That year, McIngvale placed more than $1 million in bets on the Astros with Las Vegas bookmakers, helping him limit his exposure from the promotion. This year, with more states offering sports betting, he has expanded options, including Mississippi and New Jersey.
Gallery Furniture's liability from the promotion surpassed $15 million this week and was still growing, McIngvale said.
"I know these wacky promotions like this one, when people get their money back, it's the greatest publicity I could ever hope for," McIngvale said.
he also the guy that turned his store/showroom into a shelter for people to stay during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 (also for LA residents fleeing Katrina in '05) and sent his trucks out to pick people up, and did it again just a few weeks ago when Houston was getting flooded again. He also donates mattresses to those who lose theirs in the floods...
McIngvale said the shelter is open 24 hours and that some people were already staying at the store.
“We’ve got food, water, we’ve got mattresses. We’ve got everything you need to ride out this storm. We pray that it ends quickly, but until then Galley Furniture North Freeway is open to any and everybody – and to your pets,” he said.