The Biggest Sports Betting Wins in Recorded History

1. A British person bet GBP 50 on a horse named Foinavon at odds of 100-to-1 in the 1967 Grand National. Foinavon won. The bettor became GBP 5,000 richer. He probably bought a car and forgot about it by Tuesday. This is not actually a famous bet. Nobody remembers Foinavon except horse people. But it is how winning works for most people: you win, you collect, you move on.

2. In January 2024, a person in Kansas placed a single-game parlay bet on the NFL playoffs. The wager was $20. The parlay hit all four legs. The person won $1.3 million. A sportsbook then reviewed the bet, determined the odds display was erroneous, and refused to pay. The bettor's lawyer argued. The sportsbook argued back. Sometimes the sportsbook wins these disputes. Sometimes they don't. No final resolution has been reported. This is winning and then entering a legal process that erases the feeling of having won.

3. A mathematical statistician noticed that certain European football leagues had weak spot-fixing detection. He developed a model predicting which games were fixed based on player positioning and movement patterns. He won €4.2 million across 18 months before sportsbooks collectively banned him. His expertise was treated as cheating. He then worked as a consultant for five sportsbooks simultaneously, which is apparently legal. This is winning until winning becomes such a reliable ability that the industry decides it cannot tolerate you.

4. An Australian named Tony Bloom has made an estimated AUD 1.2 billion betting on sports and horse racing since 1992. Bloom owns Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, partially because he has so much money from betting that he needed somewhere to put it. Nobody stopped him. Nobody accused him of cheating. The difference between Bloom and the statistician above is that Bloom primarily bets on horse racing, an old-money form of gambling, rather than on football matches in regulated sportsbooks. The industry tolerates rich people's success at horses. It does not tolerate success at football.

5. In 2020, a professional bettor placed a series of wagers on soccer matches in Belgium. The sportsbook eventually realized he was consistently beating the odds. The sportsbook then restricted his account, limiting his maximum bet to the equivalent of USD 2.50. A professional bettor making USD 2.50 bets is not actually a professional bettor anymore. He is a person placing two-dollar bets. He filed complaints. He lost. The sportsbook's position was that they reserve the right to decline business with anyone.

6. A man in Las Vegas bet USD 1.5 million on the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl. The bet was placed through a sportsbook, not directly with a casino. The 49ers won. He collected USD 3.9 million. A sportsbook executive was later quoted saying this was "an accounting error." The bettor's lawyer explained that "accounting errors" do not erase debts. The sportsbook paid.

7. A woman in Australia bet AUD 3 on a horse named Kerepe at odds of 1300-to-1 in a thoroughbred race. Kerepe won. She collected AUD 3,900. She was very excited. This is perhaps the happiest a person has ever been about winning AUD 3,900.

What These Wins Reveal About the Industry

The thing about big sports betting wins is that the industry's tolerance for them depends heavily on who you are and what you bet on. Rich people betting on horses are fine. Poor people winning one lucky parlay are actually not fine, because the sportsbooks will challenge the bet and sometimes refuse to pay. Professional bettors are banned. Amateur bettors are allowed until they stop losing.

The other thing is that winning is often followed by a dispute. You would think that a sportsbook receiving clear terms and a wager would honor the wager when you win. But sportsbooks will dispute odds displays, claim the line was erroneous, blame the software, demand evidence that you knew something they didn't. They will do anything except simply pay you.

The biggest wins are not really wins. They are stories about the moment right before a dispute started.