Argentina and Lionel Messi will square off against France and Kylian Mbappé on Sunday in the title match of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
One gambler hopes that France can pull out a victory — not because he’s a fan of the team or country, but because he will take home a serious payout.
After winning six consecutive bets in his parlay wager, a bettor named Daniel Forte is set to win a whopping $557,770 if France wins on Sunday, according to bet slips posted by Bleacher Report. Parlays combine multiple bets into a single wager, with a win needed for each bet in order for the overall wager to be considered a win. This way, each win inside a parlay garners a higher payout than if a bettor placed all those wagers separately.
As part of this parlay, which can been seen below, Forte also bet on the Golden State Warriors to win the 2022 NBA Championship, the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup and Kansas to win the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Forte’s bet of $26 will lead to a payday of more than a half million dollars if France beats Argentina. If France loses, then his parlay loses and he will get nothing despite all the other sections of his parlay being correct.
The implied probability of all of these bets to win when they were made is so statistically small that it’s closer to 0% than 1%.
“I’m two games away,” Forte said after France advanced to the semifinals last week. “The heart is racing. I’ve never had an intense feeling during a game like this before.”
Related: Budweiser says it will award unconsumed Qatar beer to the World Cup winner
Sports-betting operators like FanDuel, the sportsbook where Forte placed this bet, and DraftKings DKNG, -4.04% are not shy about highlighting betting tickets like Forte’s, because those long-shot bets give hope to people who think they will be the next one to turn $26 into $557,000. FanDuel has confirmed that the screenshots of the wager are accurate.
“Parlay [bets] are popular because everyone dreams of turning a little bit of cash into a big payday,” says Steven Petrella, deputy editor for the Action Network. “Sportsbooks love to promote big parlay winners on Twitter and Instagram, but they’re not posting the thousands of losing parlay tickets.”
Whichever team wins on Sunday, it will also cash in. The the 2022 World Cup features a record-breaking amount of prize money at $440 million — up from $400 million for the 2018 World Cup, which was hosted by Russia. This year’s winning team will get $42 million, or $4 million more than the winner of the 2018 tournament, and the runner-up will receive $30 million.
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