Another Michigan Hero - $1M Winner Goes 81-0 ATS
February 6th, 2017 at 2:27 PM ^
Bullshit. Have a better chance of getting attacked by a polar bear and a regular bear in the same day. Probably some marketing ploy
February 6th, 2017 at 2:28 PM ^
I'll also add...the best gamblers in the world are right about 60% of the time.
February 6th, 2017 at 3:21 PM ^
I hope someone looks into this. Ten bucks says the owner of the app and the winner were buddies, app owner says I'll give you $1mm if you tell everyone you predicted 81 games in a row correctly, and sign this NDA to not say a word about our side deal.
February 6th, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 4:18 PM ^
I can't remember where, but I read earlier today that during the regular season the spread was padded by 10 points, and during the playoffs (not including the Super Bowl), the spread was padded by 6 points. That makes beating the "spread" substantially easier.
Also, one week he failed to submit his picks on time and had to buy a "power up" that randomly made picks for him, and the (alleged) random picks were all correct, which is certainly possible but makes the whole thing seem a little sketchy.
tf
EDIT: Since everybody is still acting as if this is completely impossible, I went back and checked ATS + 10 performance for both Detroit and Dallas. If you simply took both of those teams throughout the regular season, with a spread padded with 10 additional points, you'd have gone 31-1. Of course, taking both teams is impossible (or at least unreasonable), as Detroit and Dallas played each other; that is the one game that Detroi lost ATS + 10.
Given how close the spread tends to be, and given an additional 10 points on top of it, and given the opportunity to pick the optimal 4 games every week, I do not find it impossible to believe somebody went undefeated throughout the regular season.
The pad dropping to 6 points for the playoffs obviously makes the whole thing more difficult, but while I think there's room for skepticism, I'm assuming the people saying this simply can't be possible are ignoring the padding on the spread.
February 6th, 2017 at 5:27 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 6:47 PM ^
14 points per game? As someone who made a couple bucks betting on Michigan I would say that is believable. Spot me 14 points either way and I would do very well.
February 6th, 2017 at 2:59 PM ^
A random player that is located in the same town as the founders of this app, Royal Oak, wins a million dollars against all odds.
February 6th, 2017 at 3:03 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 3:05 PM ^
/grabs calculator
/types 0.5 ^ 81
...
yeah, no.
February 6th, 2017 at 3:31 PM ^
Even if you take something ridiculous like 0.85 ^ 81, it's still 500,000 to 1 against.
Or at .9 ^ 81, it's 5,000 to 1 against.
So yeah, no. Even if you could pick NFL games against the spread at 90 percent, (1) you're doing something better with that talent than entering this stupid contest, and (2) you're still not picking 81 of 81.
It's so implausible that it's really annoying to me that USA Today presents this as a straight news story.
February 6th, 2017 at 5:41 PM ^
http://www.golf.com/ap-news/2-golfers-hit-consecutive-holes-one
I have no idea why people are so shocked here. 500,000-to-one odds are way better odds than people winning the lotto, but people do that almost every week. Here is a story on two folks that his back-to-back holes in one on the same folf course. The odds? 17 million to 1. http://www.golf.com/ap-news/2-golfers-hit-consecutive-holes-one
February 6th, 2017 at 3:26 PM ^
Going 81-0 ATS is much more difficult than picking a perfect NCAA bracket. Was it a contest that paid out for first place, or did he have to not lose a single pick to get the money? If it's the latter then it should've paid $1 billion, not $1 million. The odds of doing what he did are crazy low.
February 6th, 2017 at 3:45 PM ^
Or the lucky guy should actually be living in a penthouse in the Bellagio and making a living by selling his picks.
The heat death of the universe may happen before any living organism goes 81-0 in what's essentially a coin flip.
February 6th, 2017 at 4:03 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 8:10 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 9:05 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 4:10 PM ^
Maybe he's a time traveler. Although that doesn't seem slightly unfair.
February 6th, 2017 at 4:22 PM ^
check his property for a DeLorean and a sports almanac from the future
February 6th, 2017 at 4:15 PM ^
If he's that good he would have won waaaaaayyy more than $1M.
February 6th, 2017 at 4:33 PM ^
I've been running an ATS pool since 2004 with anywhere between 12-16 guys. In that entire time, we've never had a single player go 16-0 in a single week. Heck, nobody's even gone 12-0, 13-0 or 14-0 during the bye weeks.
Going 81-0 would require rattling off 5 straight 16-0 weeks - about as likely as winning the Mega Millions and the Powerball in the same week.
February 6th, 2017 at 5:03 PM ^
I had an incredible run in Vegas on a college football Saturday a few years ago where I picked 11 ATS winners out of 13 games I bet that day. And I felt like I won the lottery. I've never matched that level of success since. The next best I've done is a a 6-way parlay and I've done that three times in my life. But 81 without a loser? It's the type of story that is so weird that it's impossible to believe.
February 6th, 2017 at 7:49 PM ^
BS. The chances of him doing that are probably less than picking a perfect bracket in the NCAA Tournament. Nice try, though.
February 6th, 2017 at 8:08 PM ^
February 6th, 2017 at 9:49 PM ^