Barstool Founder and CEO Dave Portnoy is seen before the Florida Atlantic Owls and Loyola (Il) Ramblers game during the Barstool Invitational at Wintrust Arena on November 8, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.
Michael Hickey | Getty Images
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is banking $2.76 million thanks to UConn’s big win over Purdue Monday night in the NCAA men’s championship game.
Portnoy tweeted the huge score from a March 20 $600,000 bet on whether the Huskies would win the national championship. DraftKings confirmed the bet to CNBC.
“Biggest gamble of my life,” Portnoy said in a post on the social networking site X. “Biggest win of my life, by far,” he added.
Barstool signed a multi-year deal with DraftKings in February. The sports media company was previously owned by Penn Entertainment.
DraftKings reported a record-breaking NCAA tournament run, with sports betting now legal in 38 states plus Washington, D.C. – five more states since this time last year.
The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans would legally bet $2.72 billion on March Madness tournaments this year. This equates to 2.2% of the total amount wagered on all sporting events last year.
DraftKings said Monday’s game was the most wagered college basketball game ever for sports betting.
FanDuel said the men’s championship game saw a 52% year-over-year increase in the number of bets and a 42% year-over-year increase in the number of bets.
HAS CaesarsMonday’s championship game represented the largest number of identical bets ever on a college basketball game at their sportsbook.
“It was a tournament for the customers as the favorites covered the spread 61% of the time,” Craig Mucklow, vice president of trading for Caesars Sportsbooks, said in an email.
Betting on the women’s tournament was particularly lucrative for sportsbooks.
South Carolina’s undefeated season and the exploits of superstar Caitlin Clark fueled a massive influx of bets. FanDuel, PariMGM and fanatics claim the championship game was their biggest betting event in women’s sports. Caesars said the women’s championship doubled the previous record for a women’s college basketball game.
“We could only imagine the result if the match was given a proper prime time slot,” Mucklow said of the women’s final.
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