Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has placed bigger bets, this time with $3 million on TCU over Georgia in the college football game. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
TCU is a major underdog
A major American sports tournament is approaching, which means it’s time for a huge bet from Mattress Mack. This time, he’s placed more than $3 million in bets on the TCU Horned Frogs to beat the Georgia Bulldogs in the College Football Playoff National Championship next Monday.
Texas loyalty
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Mac, whose real name is Jim MacIngville, bet on UCLA, since he’s from Houston and the school is in Fort Worth. Texas loyalty, so to speak.
As Action Network’s Darren Rovell reports, about two-thirds of Mattress Mack’s bets are on the TCU moneyline. His biggest stake is at $1.5 million at DraftKings, where he has a TCU +370. He also put $500,000 into Caesars at +400 and $130,000 into WynnBet at +380.
McIngvale slashed another $1 million on the spread, taking TCU at +13 with a vig of -110. If TCU pulls off the big upset (they beat Michigan in the semifinals by 7.5 points), McIngvale stands to win nearly $8 million.
World Record-Setting Cash Championship
Mattress Mack has been making these crazy bets for years, but he topped them all in 2022 when he won $75 million when his favorite team, the Houston Astros, won the World Series last fall. He placed a series of bets all season totaling $10 million, getting average odds of +750. This was the largest sports betting payout ever recorded.
The Astros were one of the favorites to win the title all season and they didn’t have much trouble making the playoffs. They swept the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees in the first two innings (although they needed a historic Game 1 comeback against Seattle to win Game 1) and then beat the Philadelphia Phillies in six games to win the World Series.
Houston trailed two games to one against Philly, but took the next three games to secure the title. They were not in danger of being wiped out at all.
Main promoter
Aside from being extremely wealthy, Mattress Mack is able to make several million bets several times a year because he brings them together with a promotion at his Gallery Furniture store in Houston. With his bet on TCU, he’s giving every customer who makes a “eligible Tempur-Pedic, Sealy, Stearns, and Foster mattress $3,000 or more on purchase and immediate delivery” double their money if the Horned Frogs win the national title.
While it is not guaranteed to turn a profit either way, the promotion is used as a hedge against one’s bets or vice versa, depending on one’s point of view. Should TCU beat Georgia, Mattress Mack would win millions, but lose a truckload of giving back to customers twice their purchase total. If TCU loses, it stands to lose more than $3 million, but it likely made more money from the promotion than it would normally have without it. Even if he loses money (and often comes out big on the positive side), he sees it as a marketing expense.
I thrive on chaos.”
Plus, for Jim McIngvale, it’s simply a lot of fun. “I’m bored to death with settling down, which is why I think I like all these big bets,” he says. he told ESPN In October 2022. “I thrive in chaos.”
“My wife says I have a gambling problem. I say I have a promotion problem.”
