(ADDS DETAILS OF INDIVIDUAL LEG VALUES OF PARLAY)
If he continues to land big parlay paydays, Marco Piemonte may have to upgrade his nickname from “Million Dollar Marco” to “Multimillion Dollar Marco.”
Piemonte, the scion running a Chicago automotive dealership who made a name for himself in the sports betting world with a nearly $3 million payout on a six-leg parlay in late September, had another massive win over the weekend, this one for nearly $2.9 million, on a five-leg NFL parlay that included two of the most improbable outcomes of the entire season to date.
He placed a $31,000 wager in Illinois through DraftKings on a parlay graded +9191 that included all three Saturday NFL games and two more from Sunday. For Saturday, Piemonte made an in-game wager on the Minnesota Vikings at +700 on the moneyline versus the Indianapolis Colts to trigger the parlay sequence, followed by the Cleveland Browns on the moneyline at -150 against the Baltimore Ravens; and the Miami Dolphins at -105 to cover as 7-point underdogs on the road against the Buffalo Bills.
His Sunday legs were the Jacksonville Jaguars at +4 at -110 against the Dallas Cowboys and the Las Vegas Raiders on the moneyline at -115 against the New England Patriots. The total payout came to $2,880,263.52, about $80,000 shy of the payout Piemonte claimed in September.
“Hey now, 2.8 million,” Piemonte said in a relatively tame Instagram Reel post put up by Betr — a sports wagering company for which he is both a signed talent and investor — following the wild Raiders-Patriots finish that capped the unlikely sequence of events. “I was in shambles here, they got me on film. I know they were filming me and I was trying my best not to cry. I’m going to need an edible to go to bed tonight. I’m going to need an edible to go to bed.”
Piemonte had his previous gigantic parlay win wagering through PointsBet, wiping out more than half the Australian-based book’s overall revenue for September in Illinois. The Illinois Gaming Board will likely not publish its December revenue report for sports wagering until the week leading up to Super Bowl LVII in early February, but given that DraftKings’ monthly revenue record in the state is $24.1 million just set in October, Piemonte likely put a smaller dent in that operator’s bottom line.
A freeroll with a fantastic finish
We have all done it again! Love all of you 🏈@betr pic.twitter.com/aGdY0pazvI
— Marco Piemonte (@Marco_Parlay) December 19, 2022
Piemonte’s wagering approach of building his bankroll with straight bets to make his parlay plays a “freeroll” of sorts was again at work here. He explained in an Instagram post Saturday after the Vikings had completed their historic comeback against the Colts that he had made a separate single wager on the Browns that paid out $200,000, which secured a winning day even if the parlay lost.
Still, Piemonte needed a whole host of things to go right in stunning fashion for this parlay to hit. For the three legs he picked using moneyline wagers, there was a point in each contest when the Browns, Vikings, and Raiders each had a win probability of under 40%, according to ESPN’s Gamecast. The Browns’ low point of 38.2%, though, came six minutes into the contest.
Prospects for the Vikings and Raiders were at one point far more dire. The Vikings had a meager 0.4% chance of winning down 36-7 with 3:19 left in the third quarter before recording the largest comeback in NFL history, winning 39-36 in overtime after trailing 33-0 at halftime.
With 2:11 to play against New England, the Raiders reached their lowest probability of winning, a 5.7% chance. At that point they were down 24-17 and Derek Carr had just thrown an incompletion on first down from the Raiders’ own 19-yard line. It was still just 11.2% right before Carr hooked up with Keelan Cole on a 30-yard scoring pass with 32 seconds left to tie the game.
Then came perhaps the most ill-advised lateral in NFL history. On the final play of regulation, Patriots wide receiver Jakobi Meyers threw a backward pass across the field intended for quarterback Mac Jones that was snared by the Raiders’ Chandler Jones.
Has to be seen to be believed: pic.twitter.com/DKNWzwu2pR
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 19, 2022
Chandler Jones walked through the QB’s tackle attempt and rumbled into the end zone with the clock reading “0:00” for a stunning 30-24 Raiders victory that triggered pandemonium (warning: link contains graphic language) at Piemonte’s house with his friends in stunned disbelief.
One of the two spread picks in the parlay — the Jaguars covering as 4-point underdogs versus the Cowboys — was also nerve-wracking. Jacksonville trailed 27-10 with 5:21 to play in the third quarter, and then Piemonte had to sweat out the overtime in which the Jags could still lose by 6. Rayshawn Jenkins kept the parlay alive with his 52-yard interception return for a touchdown, a play that came after the Cowboys’ first three snaps in the extra period were running plays that gained a total of 27 yards.
Refusal to cash out proves profitable
Piemonte shared on social media various cash-out offers by DraftKings throughout the weekend, which started at $85,000 on Saturday and escalated to more than $800,000 by late Saturday night after the Dolphins covered with their 32-29 loss to the Bills.
On Sunday, he turned down two seven-figure offers — one of nearly $1.5 million (warning: link contains graphic language) shortly after the late afternoon games began and a second of almost $2.3 million at about 5:30 p.m. ET.
