One of the largest payouts on a parlay bet ever reported by a U.S. sportsbook came down to the final seconds and a winning drive authored by Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud.
A bettor in Florida won $5.5 million on a $500,000 four-leg NFL parlay with the newly reopened Hard Rock sportsbook when Texans kicker Matt Ammendola hit a 38-yard field goal on the final play to lift Houston to a 30-27 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.
The four legs of the same-game parlay were:
• The Houston Texans to beat the Cincinnati Bengals
• The Texans-Bengals to go over 44.5 points
• Texans running back Devin Singletary to score a touchdown
• Singletary to go over 51.5 rushing yards
They all hit, as the underdog Texans upset the Bengals. Singletary rushed for 150 yards and a touchdown, and Stroud completed 3 of 4 passes to get Houston into field goal position on the final drive.
"Who else cooked us?" Hard Rock sportsbook's account posted on X, formerly Twitter, noting the big parlay payout.
Hard Rock's online sportsbook in Florida had been closed for two years while a legal battle played out all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Since its reopening last Tuesday, a source familiar with the action said million-dollar bets have not been uncommon.
On Wednesday, a bettor in Florida placed two bets totaling $1,546,000 on a one-win Kent State football team against Bowling Green.
The bets:
• $1.12 million on Kent State +10.5 (-115)
• $426,000 on Kent State money line at +325
Bowling Green won 49-19.
Jon Chapper, senior director of communications for Hard Rock Digital, confirmed the Kent State bets to ESPN but declined to disclose whether they were from the same player who won the $5.5 million parlay. Chapper said the type of large bets that had been placed this past week -- including on lower-profile games -- was consistent with the wagering that the sportsbook had seen when it was open for roughly a month in November 2021.
"With such a large and diverse population, nothing is 'low profile,'" Chapper told ESPN in an email. "We see great interest in wagers across our deep betting markets. That said, we're always performing due diligence, especially on large wagers."
Shahrouz Ebadian, a tech executive in Fort Lauderdale, is no stranger to big bets. He regularly has flown to Las Vegas in the past and more recently New Orleans to place his bets, which have ranged from $10,000 to $100,000 and larger during his wagering career.
Ebadian told ESPN he wasn't surprised by the size of the bets being reported by Hard Rock in Florida, but playfully questioned some of the bettors' picks. He was sitting at a bar with his girlfriend when he first saw the news of the big bets on Kent State on social media and didn't believe it. He said he later was told by a Hard Rock VIP host that the bet was real and that the same bettor was back betting again the following day after losing on Kent State.
"Why the hell would somebody put a million [dollars] on a 1-8 team? Why would you do that?" Ebadian said. "But the amounts, I think you're going to see that all the time down here. I know there's money in New York, where it's legal, too, but I think South Florida is a different animal."