Texas Furniture Store Owner Bets Over $3 Million On Buccaneers
If you aren't familiar with furniture store owner Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, he's sort of a local legend and hero throughout the Houston area. "Mattress Mack" is well known for his wild and crazy furniture promotions which usually involves huge bets he places on sports teams and he just placed a huge bet for this weekend's big game.
According to ESPN, Mattress Mack has placed the largest wager on the big game so far, $3.46 million on the underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers at +3.5 to cover the spread. This means that if the Bucs win (or lose) by at least 4 points, McIngvale could win $2.72 million.
The reason McIngvale does this is to mitigate risk on sales promotions at his furniture store. Customers at McIngvale's store who spend $3,000 or more on a new mattress will get their money back if the Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
This isn't the first time Mattress Mack has placed such a large wager to cover the potential losses he could face at his stores. He had more than $11 million in play on the 2019 World Series between the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals, including a $3.5 million futures bet on the Astros. The Astros went on to lose the series in seven games but like we described before, while he may have lost some money on the bet, he may have broke even by the increased sales from customers.
But don't get too upset about it Chiefs fans, Vegas and sports books across the country still like the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes as a majority of the bets are in favor of the Chiefs to win.