There are some incredibly wealthy people out there. There needs to be to make some of these largest bets ever placed possible. If you can effectively throw away money, like some of the following, you must be stupid or have a whopping bank account. In most cases, it’s probably a mixture of both…
Either way, these gamblers have a lot more money than sense!
Largest bets ever placed
1. Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather
You can’t write a gambling list without mentioning Floyd Mayweather. He’s the king of betting! He regularly stakes 100s of thousands of dollars on sporting events across the globe.
Although, he makes this list thanks to his ridiculous $5.9 million bet on Miami Heat to beat Indiana Pacers in 2013. Thankfully for Mayweather, his team won and he came away with a somewhat small return of $600,000. You would have thought a bet that cost $5.9 million would bring in more than $600,000.
But, Mayweather’s not bothered how much he wins. He’s already got more than enough cash. It just allows him to live up to his nickname, ‘Floyd Money Mayweather’. He is still the highest-earning athlete in the world so I’m sure $6 million is only a small dent in his wallet.
To stand out, even more, Mayweather placed this bet on a basketball match, a sport which usually receives far fewer bets. It’s generally the Super Bowl or boxing fights which take the big money. I’m sure that Floyd would bet on himself if it was possible!
2. Billy Walters
Billy Walters was well known in the high stakes gambling sector. Over four decades he wagered huge amounts of money on sporting events and made millions from his bets. This allowed him to buy 7 homes and a private jet.
At one point, he was one of the most successful sports bettors in the world. However, it turns out he was involved with illegal activity and was the mastermind of an insider-trading scheme. He is currently serving 5 years behind bars.
However, his biggest bet was on the Super Bowl in 2010 where he bet $3.5 million on the New Orleans Saints beating the Indianapolis Colts. He went on to win this bet, taking home a cool $7 million. Whether this was an illegal bet we’re not sure, but it still makes this list for one of the largest bets ever placed.
3. ‘Superfight betting’
More recently in the fight of the century, as many people called it, between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor more betting records fell.
One anonymous gambler wagered $880,000, in a US casino, on Floyd Mayweather to beat Conor McGregor. This bet was so large that the casino had to break it down into two separate bets of $440k. This bettor took home $120,000 with him thanks to Mayweather beating McGregor.
4. Politics betting
In 2014, William Hill revealed an unnamed bettor from Surrey had placed a £900,000 bet backing the NO vote for Scottish Independence. This was and still is the largest known bet on a political market. The man, who placed his bet in a London shop, went on to win £193,000 from his bet.
However, his luck ended there. Three years later, in 2017, he re-invested his winnings into the UK general election. He wagered £200,000 on a hung parliament. Unfortunately, the man lost his £200,000.
5. Terrance Watanabe
This story is a little different from the previous ones. It’s not so much one large bet but, a huge number of bets racking up to an enormous total.
How this is possible I’m still not sure, but Terrance Watanabe managed to gamble away $127 million in just one year. This is an insane amount of money that he spent 20 years to build.
Watanabe gambled his family wealth at two Las Vegas casinos: Caesars Palace and Rio. At his lowest, he would gamble up to $5 million in a single day. Whilst only a few of these bets would have been placed on sports betting it’s still worth adding Watanabe on our list.
As you can see, gambling can be a serious problem. To find out more or to get some advice visit www.begambleaware.org
Matched betting
If you had an endless supply of cash you probably wouldn’t need to use matched betting to make money online. The only reason you’ll have found this page is if you’re here to see what it takes to beat some of the existing bettors to the top of our five largest bets ever placed list.
Making money from the betting companies is one of the greatest parts of matched betting. It’s great to do what most bookies do to their customers. Whilst these are some of the biggest bets ever placed there are hundreds of smaller bets that gamblers lose regularly.
If you’re one of those bettors and you’re tired of the bookies taking your hard-earned cash it’s time to turn it around with matched betting.
This is a completely legitimate way to make money online from the bookmaker’s free bets and promotions. Matched betting is not gambling so there is no risk involved with this technique.
You can find out more in the ‘Learn More’ section at the top of this page or visit this link.