American Sports Betting Weekend Roundup
THE WEEKEND WRAP
This past weekend's action from a bookmaker's point-of-view
By Jimmy Mason, Director of Sportsbook Operations,
Betcom
May 9
Congratulations to Kirk from Washington, Pa. who turned a $150 parlay into a $68,000 weekend killer for us. While we still squeezed out a profit, we may the only sportsbook in the world who did not have a record weekend.
Saturday was huge for us with the Rockets/Mav's game going our way, baseball was steady and the Kentucky Derby was a slaughter as not one ticket was cashed on Giacomo. We were cruising along at an unheard of 18% hold on our volume and all the stars seemed in alignment for monster weekend. Sunday evening after we scored the afternoon games we noticed something alarming. Suddenly our chart said we stood to lose $85,000 on the late Reds/Dodgers game. It turned out that Kirk had already hit 8 legs of a ten team parlay and was waiting on the Dodgers and the over 10 runs. $150 would pay $67, 923!.
Myself, and a couple of the linesmen went out for a very nervous dinner once the Reds and Dodgers started. Wow did we sweat that game! Through five complete innings the Dodgers were trailing 2-1 and everyone but me was pretty loose. In the top of the sixth the Dodgers put together a four run rally and the score was a bit more ominous with Dodgers now leading 5-2. They tacked on another run in the next inning so after 7 complete the score was 6-2 Dodgers. The Dodgers and Reds both scored a run in the eighth and we were pretty much done. At 7-3 we knew we lost the over, but we still had an outside shot that the Reds could rally and win the game. That never happened though and us bookies decided to skip dessert and went straight home thanks to Kirk and the Dodgers.
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