College Football

Thrifty bettor would cash $147k on 85 cent, 14-leg parlay if Buckeyes win CFP

Updated Dec. 20, 2024 9:50 p.m. ET

The parlay heard ‘round the world landed on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Friday morning.

All it needs to reach the finish line: Ohio State winning the 12-team College Football Playoff, which is hardly far-fetched. And the wager is arguably the craziest one you’ve ever seen: 85 cents on a 14-leg parlay.

It’s a mix of March Madness, the NBA All-Star Game, NBA, and NHL futures, along with UFC and boxing outcomes. It's capped by college football’s national champion.

As the CFP begins, the first 13 legs are all in. The bettor only needs Ohio State to win it all: $147,507.44.

Unless the bettor first sells his ticket. He’s currently got it listed on PropSwap, a secondary marketplace specializing in selling sports betting tickets. Think StubHub but for sports bets and typically for futures wagers and parlays.

PropSwap founder and CEO Luke Pergande found the ticket eye-popping, to say the least.

"It’s the best bet I’ve seen this year. Eighty-five cents buys literally nothing in this economy," Pergande told FOX Sports.

Pocket-Change Parlay

Back on Feb. 12, a FanDuel Sportsbook customer, who perhaps only had 85 cents in his account, decided to utilize that couch-cushion money in the wildest possible way.

The parlay opened by taking the NBA All-Star Game Over, on a total of 363.5 points. That was one of the easier legs, as the East beat the West 211-186, for 397 total points.

So the first leg was in. But 13 more legs to go? Seriously?

However, one by one, over the course of the next three months, the parlay remained alive.

Takuma Inoue scored a ninth-round knockout of Jerwin Ancajas in a WBA title bout on Feb. 24. Then UConn won the NCAA men’s basketball championship on April 8.

April 13 was a particularly key day, the end of the NBA regular season. Five legs of this bettor’s parlay hinged on division champions, and he hit them all:

Milwaukee Bucks to win the Central Division
Orlando Magic to win the Southeast Division
Los Angeles Clippers to win the Pacific Division
Dallas Mavericks to win the Southwest Division
Oklahoma City to win the Northwest Division

There were some serious sweats on that portion of the parlay. Oklahoma City and Denver tied with straight-up (SU) wins at 57-25, but the Thunder won the tiebreaker. Milwaukee, Orlando, and Dallas won their respective divisions by one game.

Los Angeles finished two games ahead of Phoenix.

Hockey Night/Fight Nights

Then it was on to NHL division winners on April 15:

New York Rangers to win the Metropolitan Division
Vancouver Canucks to win the Pacific Division

Those were followed by a trio of favorable boxing outcomes. On April 21, Ryan Garcia — a +440 underdog — scored a majority-decision upset of WBC super lightweight champ Devin Haney.

In a May 12 IBF lightweight title fight, Vasyl Lomachenko earned a TKO against George Kambosos Jr. And on May 18, Oleksandr Usyk won a split decision vs. Tyson Fury in a battle for the undisputed heavyweight title.

That’s 13 legs.

Since then — seven months and counting — it’s been hurry-up-and-wait time. Ohio State is the final leg. The Buckeyes host Tennessee in the first round of the CFP, in an 8 p.m. ET Saturday kickoff.

Ohio State Buckeyes: How will Ryan Day approach the game plan vs. Tennessee?

Four Games To Go

Granted, there’s still a considerable distance to travel. Ohio State is the No. 8 seed in the 12-team field. If the Buckeyes win Saturday night, then they face No. 1 seed Oregon in the Rose Bowl for a Jan. 1 quarterfinal.

That’s a rematch of a thrilling regular-season game. The Ducks were 3.5-point home underdogs and squeaked out a 32-31 win in Week 7.

If Ohio State wins the rematch, Texas could be waiting in the semis at the Cotton Bowl. At the moment, Caesars Sports has Oregon and Texas as the +350 co-favorites to win the National Championship.

Georgia is the +475 third choice to win the College Football Playoff, followed by Ohio State at +490. If the Buckeyes reach the Jan. 20 national title game, Georgia could be waiting there.

Even if the bettor sells his ticket — for potentially $13,000 or more — he’ll do extremely well for the 85-cent investment. And the new owner still stands to make a mountain of money for Ohio State.

So buckle up for what might be a very entertaining ride.

More Potential Payouts

At DraftKings Sportsbook, three customers have significant parlay tickets tied to the College Football Playoff. Arguably, the most intriguing one is a $5 nine-leg parlay that has great potential.

The only remaining leg: Georgia to win the CFP title. If the Bulldogs get there, the bettor's five bucks swell to $94,234. That's insanely huge odds of +1884680, or in slightly shorter form, about 18847/1.

Then there's a $35 five-leg parlay that only needs Penn State to finish it off. The odds are a hefty +464273 (about 4643/1), for potential profit of $162,495.55.

Finally, there's this juicy $500 five-leg parlay, but it still has two legs to go in order to win more than a million dollars:

Boston Celtics -150 to win the NBA Finals
Florida Panthers +210 to win the Stanley Cup
Los Angeles Dodgers +300 to win the World Series
Texas +700 to win the College Football Playoff
Detroit Lions +1200 to win the Super Bowl

Add it all up, and you've got long odds of +214833, or in shorter form, 2148/1. If the Longhorns and Lions survive, the bettor will profit $1.074 million.

Patrick Everson is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and senior reporter for VegasInsider.com. He is a distinguished journalist in the national sports betting space. He’s based in Las Vegas, where he enjoys golfing in 110-degree heat. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickE_Vegas

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