Ten People Who Got Rich Via Sports Betting

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Posted: March 16, 2023

Updated: March 16, 2023

  • The biggest names in sports betting!
  • Turning a pasttime into a profession is possible!
  • Check out the top ten people who got rich via sports betting!

Sports betting is a fun pastime for everyone from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter if you spend only a few dollars or bet millions. The cash prize is exciting and tempting, no matter how much you already have! Quitting your job and becoming a professional sports bettor would be a dream come true for many, but only a few are clever and disciplined enough to make a living from their hobby. With sports betting, you can win not only small amounts but also entire fortunes. We are going to show you the top ten people who got rich via sports betting!

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Listen to Lewis Deyong

Lewis Deyong has almost devoted his entire life to perfecting his skills as a sports bettor. He began his gambling career as an excellent backgammon player, reaching the finals of the 1972 World Championship. He wrote several books about backgammon and later became the organizer of the World Championship in Monte Carlo and one of the best gamblers in the world. After becoming a recognized expert on the subject, he was employed as a consultant by many bookmakers.

At the same time, he continued to play the game and still liked to play against bookmakers with whom he had no working relationship. Ever since he was 21, he made a living from gambling and spent several decades beating the odds. In addition to his passion, he owes his reputation to the always playing it safe and the strategies he developed. He is considered the father of sure filling. Deyong lived in several parts of the world and traveled anywhere for a betting opportunity.

It might help!

Deyong had a couple of rules you might also find helpful. He said bettors will not find bets with positive expected value on the Super Bowl or the Wimbledon tennis finals since the bookmakers determine the odds very carefully in these markets. Plus, we cannot obtain insider information. At such big and popular events, the market reacts much faster, so the value disappears much sooner. No matter how good your prediction for a match might be, your guess will lose its value.

ten people who got rich via sports betting

However, most often, you can make a lot in the early stages of tennis tournaments or with lower-class football games and with the underdogs. Lewis’s firm opinion is that we can only profit from betting in the long term if we become experts in specific markets. It was no coincidence that Lewis Deyong focused on tennis and American football during his career as he is convinced that in three-way bets where a draw is a realistic result, like football or cricket, you have the highest chance to win. Give these theories a try at 22Bet Sportsbook!

Two professionals who got rich via sports betting

Mike Futter’s name is famous in sports betting circles, but with one of his successful bets, he wrote his name forever in the history books. It was back in 2003 when Futter bet on his own horse Monty’s Pass, in a horse race. The horse did not let him down, just the opposite! He won hundreds of thousands of pounds for first place, for which Futter could pocket a bonus as well. He could do that because the horse was not among the favorites and had high odds. By the way, he owns bingo halls, so Futter has been making a living from gambling for a while now.

Back in 2015, Dave Oancea or as many people know him, Vegas Dave, placed a bet on MLB at the beginning of the season that the Kansas City Royals would win the championship. The bookmaker promised 30 times more money. Dave’s motto was: go big or go home, as he decided to put 140,000 dollars on this outcome. He had to place the bet in 15 separate places because no bookmaker accepted it in one sum. After Kansas won that season, he got richer with 2.5 million dollars. A year later, he made it again and won $2.3 million with a Super Bowl bet.

ten people who got rich via sports betting

Billy Walters has the longest winning streak!

Then, there is the legendary sports bettor and bet, attributed to one of the most successful sports bettors ever, Billy Walters. In 2010, he bet 3.5 million dollars that the New Orleans Saints would beat the Colt team in the Super Bowl. Thanks to sports betting, he turned from the once poor boy into a businessman with a fortune of over several hundred million dollars. The unique thing about Walters is that he has the fund and knowledge to force the bookies to change the odds if he doesn’t like them. 

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If Walters thinks the favorite will win but doesn’t like their low odds, he will have his men bet on the underdog. Bookmakers need roughly the same amount of money on both sides of the bet to operate well, so they respond to Walters’ wagers by increasing the odds to attract more bets on the favorite. Then Walters takes action and instructs his partners to place even bigger bets on the favorites in parallel. It’s a brilliant move on his part. 

Walters was successful, so he was able to collect a large prize. By the way, Walters is the perfect example that sports betting is not just about luck. He has the longest winning streak of all time: over 30 years. Walters earned first place among the ten people who got rich via sports betting goes to him! According to online sportsbook sites in the US, he is about to publish a book about his gambling career and why he got sentenced to five years in prison. However, it had nothing to do with being one of the best sports betting billionaires.

ten people who got rich via sports betting

Two of ten people who got rich via sports betting at horse races

£2 bet + 725,000/1 odds = £1.45 million prize! The world’s largest known jackpot was won in 2011 in the United Kingdom when a heating engineer named Steve Whiteley won 1.45 million British pounds with a modest bet of 2 pounds. Whiteley has picked six winners in the Exeter Tote Jackpot, a compilation of British and Irish horse races without knowing anything about horse racing. Whiteley entered the race track with a free ticket due to a promotion, so all he had to pay for the profit was only two pounds. Though he was not the only amateur gambler who won big on sports!

When someone mentions Darren Yates’ name, horse racing betting comes to mind. In 1996, he wrote his name in the sports betting history books forever when he correctly predicted Frankie Dettori’s historic seven times win at Ascot. A £67.58 bet earned him £550,823 as Dettori pulled off one of the greatest feats in horse racing history. This bettor also adds to the legend of this unusual event. The equation looks like this: £67.58 bet + 8,150/1 Odds = £550,823 winning. 

Sports betting is a well-paying hobby!

A gentleman named Mick Gibbs won 157,000 pounds with a ticket of only $2.5. The slip consisted of 15 matches, and he predicted every single one correctly, moreover, all of them had high odds. After his first 14 matches, the only meeting that had to come was the one where Bayern Munich had to beat Valencia in the Champions League final. The Germans won by penalty kicks, so Gibbs, who makes a living as a professional bettor, won one of his big prizes, and he had quite a few before and after as well.

ten people who got rich via sports betting

One of the ten bettors who got rich via sports betting is a soccer fan named Adrian Hayward, who placed $200 on that Xavi Alonso would score a goal from his own half in 2005. It didn’t work out, but that didn’t discourage the bettor, who tried again in 2006 when Liverpool played against Luton Town during the FA Cup. Finally, the goal from his previous bet took place, and, in addition to Liverpool’s success, Hayward also won a massive 25,000-pound prize with a single guess. You can place similarly brilliant bets at 22Bet Sportsbook!  

Fred Craggs joined the ten people who got rich via sports betting!

Another horse race genius is on our list of the top ten people who got rich via sports betting. He bet on a horse race but didn’t even notice the prize. They told him at the bookmaker that he was the luckiest man when he went to purchase another ticket! Fred Craggs is convinced that no one should play with big stakes, but he doesn’t like to wager on small prizes either. In essence, he prefers to bet on high odds with multiple bets. The maximum he spent on a slip was the price of a pack of cigarettes. 

In 2008, Craggs bet on the 2 million to one odds on a horse race. He chose the horses based only on names and odds, among which were: Isn’t That Lucky or Dream Come True, so he got it right by choosing from fun. Craggs celebrated his 60th birthday with the 50p slip. Yes, he spent half a pound on an accumulator bet, which made him a millionaire! The spokesperson of the bookmaker said that they had never seen winning odds of this magnitude before, and such an amount is rare in the history of Scottish gambling. It was only ten years later that someone won a similar prize at a horse race.

ten people who got rich via sports betting

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a bigger bettor than Michael Jordan!

The world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s nickname is Money, and now you will understand why. He is no stranger to winning in and out of the ring. His impressive boxing record is matched by a stellar gambling record, making $45,000 after placing a bet on the state of Colorado with a $50,000 wager. He likes to tweet about his seven-figure winning prizes and post pictures of his betting slips. The retired boxer loves to take risks, so he gambles all the time. Even though we are no world champions, we all have a chance to win at 22Bet Sportsbook!

He has numerous sports bet wins under his belt, like the $50,000 he won in a college football game. Another time, he doubled his $6 million bet with the help of the Miami Heat, who triumphed in the seventh game of the NBA finals. Once, he posted a picture of over 40 slips with over 3 million dollars in winnings. There is one picture of him bragging about his two major winning tickets. He must be proud of the 885,714 dollars winning. 

He earned this sum due to betting on two NFL teams, namely that the Indianapolis Colts and the Jacksonville Jaguars, would beat their opponents by at least seven points. As you know, his prediction was correct. There is another shocking photo of him sprawled on his double bed among stacks of dollars. It’s a wonder why people think of Michael Jorden when it comes to the most impressive gambling athletes. Click on the link for more of the riskiest bets of all time

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