It’s basic to say now that we have a year behind us, but looking back at 2025, some betting decisions may have been… miscalculated.
Some examples:
Last season, DraftKings said it placed a $25,000 bet on the Las Vegas Raiders to win the Super Bowl at 100-1. The Raiders would not win the Super Bowl.
102 entries to Circa Survivor, a high-stakes NFL survivor competition run by a Las Vegas casino, did not submit their picks by the weekly deadline this season and were eliminated. The tournament buy-in was $1,000 and the prize pool was $18.7 million.
Kalshi Prediction Market noted that one of its clients invested $183,954 in social media influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul to defeat vigorous two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. Paul was hospitalized with a broken jaw thanks to Joshua’s devastating right hand during the knockout victory. Live and learn, right?
This year hasn’t been a bad one for gamblers at all. There have been several betting success stories that have had bookmaking executives lamenting to shareholders about “customer-friendly results” or begging gambling regulators to allow them to void angle shooting contracts altogether. Despite these setbacks, the betting industry is expected to survive the up-to-date year.
As we reflect on the year in betting, we wish you fewer miscalculations in 2026.
The craziest bets of 2025
January 9: A DraftKings bettor placed a 50-cent 19-game college basketball bet at odds of +43,473,946. All 19 teams covered the spread; 17 of them came from compact conferences, including Stetson, Jacksonville and IU Indianapolis.
The 50-cent jackpot won $217,370.23.
January 28: A DraftKings bettor placed a $1,000 bet on Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza to win the Heisman Trophy at odds of 100-1. Eleven months later, in December, Mendoza received the Heisman Award, which resulted in a net winning of $100,000.
February 9: The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX 40-22. BetMGM customers lost more money on the Super Bowl than on any other game in any sport in 2025, according to the bookmaker.
April 21: Sportsbooks began noticing an unusual spike in home run bets on Wednesday morning at the start of the MLB season. The bets were not on Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani. They involved Nick Castellanos, a journeyman outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies and the subject of an Internet meme that has earned him a reputation for returning home on gigantic news days.
“We started looking around to see what was going on and we saw that the Pope had died,” recalled BetMGM’s Halvor Egeland.
Egeland said BetMGM rarely charges enough on a home run bet to adjust the odds, but it did that day, dropping Castellanos from +775 to +550. This didn’t leisurely down the action. By the end of the day, more bets had been placed on Castellanos’ homer than on any other team or player in all sports.
Castellanos went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the Phillies’ 5-4 loss to the Novel York Mets.
June 5: A bettor from Ohio with BetMGM placed a bet An $8 million bet on the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder, who defeated the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals at -700 odds.
The Thunder defeated the Pacers in seven games, with bettors net winning $1.42 million.
June 15: JJ Spaun shot 150-1 to win the US Open. Spaun had the best chance to win of any player since Phil Mickelson (200-1) won the 2021 PGA Championship.
June 24: An Arizona bettor using BetMGM placed three gigantic bets on the winner of the College Football Playoff:
$300,000 to Texas at 5-1 $200,000 at Penn State at +750 $115,000 for Clemson at 13-1
All three teams missed the CFP.
June 25: The Dallas Mavericks selected Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. The Mavericks were 500-1 to select Flagg, the highest odds of any futures bet offered by DraftKings in 2026.
August 23: Heading into the college football season, North Carolina, under first-year coach Bill Belichick, attracted the same amount of money and wagering to win the national championship as Indiana on BetMGM Sportsbook. The Hoosiers finished the season undefeated and entered the CFP with the top seed, while the Tar Heels finished 4-8.
August 30: A DraftKings bettor picked the winner of all 15 MLB games this Saturday, who won $125,088.36 in a $5 15-game bet deal.
August 31: A FanDuel player followed beloved college football personality Lee Corso College Gameday final picks and won $1,317.18 in a six-game $10 giveaway that included outright wins over Florida State and Alabama. Corso retired from the series this year.
September 7: The Buffalo Bills staged a remarkable comeback by beating the Baltimore Ravens 41-40 on Sunday in the first week of the NFL season. According to the bookmaker, this transaction resulted in the largest winnings in any game for BetMGM customers this year. In an earnings call, DraftKings said the Bills-Ravens partnership had the biggest loss in the sportsbook’s history.
September 11: A bettor at Caesars Sportsbook risked $715,000 on +140 underdog Terence Crawford to defeat Canelo Alvarez and netted $985,000 as Crawford won by unanimous decision.
October 15: A Massachusetts bettor operating DraftKings placed 27 parlay bets centered on how many hits Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes would have in the American League Championship Series game against the Seattle Mariners. The player risked $12,950 for a chance to win $934,147.83.
DraftKings has informed the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) that a technical error allowed a bettor to include Luke’s five-plus, six-plus, seven-plus and eight-plus hits during the ALCS in sports betting to boost the odds. Lukes had nine hits in the ALCS.
DraftKings told MGC it believes the player’s relative is among six customers in Novel Jersey who also placed a similar bet on Lukes, resulting in a $1.8 million winnings. Gaming regulators in Massachusetts and Novel Jersey rejected DraftKings’ request to void the bets.
November 2: A week after National Tight End Day, a bettor at Caesars Sportsbook bet on five tight ends and scored the first touchdown of his parlay series. Four of the five players – Theo Johnson of the Novel York Giants, Tyler Higbee of the Los Angeles Rams, Dalton Kincaid of the Bills and Sam LaPorta of the Detroit Lions – returned the win to the bettor, resulting in winnings of approximately $111,000.
“The customer bet on each combination of these five selections and bet $2.50 per leg, and the potential winnings were just under $2 million,” said Joey Feazel of Caesars Sportsbook. “Although the bettor missed all five, he hit four of five, allowing him to win over $111,000. A fantastic investment for the bettor.”
December 7: A Demanding Rock BET bettor placed a $1.20 bet involving all college basketball players, resulting in a payout of $344,902.81. According to the company, at +34,490,181, this is the highest ever odds for a successful deal at Demanding Rock BET.
December 8: A Fanatics bettor placed $1.47 million on a four-game NFL bet in Week 14, netting him $1.86 million, the sportsbook’s biggest winning bet of the year. Four legs: Rams money line over Arizona Cardinals; Green Bay Packers Moneyline over Chicago Bears; and Denver Broncos over Raiders and under at Pittsburgh Steelers-Ravens (alternate line).
December 14: The player successfully predicted that a player would score the first touchdown in five NFL games, turning a 10-cent winnings into a payout of $7,356.80.
Fabio Wardley’s team wants tighter control of Daniel Dubois’ head-first attacks in Saturday’s rematch, with manager Michael Ofo calling for stronger officiating after their first fight.
The concern is about Wardley being able to punch without Dubois driving into him with his head. Those collisions can interrupt an attack, knock a fighter out of position, and make him hesitate before throwing again.
Dubois recovered from two knockdowns to stop Wardley in May and take the WBO heavyweight title. Ahead of their return at London’s O2 Arena, Ofo has accused the champion of leading with his head and using a tackle during that fight.
“We’re calling for a stronger referee, because it’s needed,” Ofo told Sky Sports Boxing.
Dubois’ trainer Don Charles rejected the criticism, describing the opposing camp’s complaints as “insecurity and weakness.”
Wardley’s camp has a reasonable case for asking the referee to watch those entries closely. When Dubois comes forward behind his punches, head contact can make it difficult for Wardley to plant his feet and counter. Intent is difficult to establish, but repeated collisions still need attention.
That becomes especially important if Wardley hurts Dubois again. He needs the opportunity to follow up without a foul interrupting his work and giving the champion time to recover.
However, Wardley cannot build his approach around the referee intervening. His jab has to give Dubois something to get past, and combinations would make him less predictable than loading up on individual power shots. Moving after punching could also reduce the opportunities for Dubois to drive into him.
Wardley showed he could hurt Dubois in the first fight. The harder task is turning those moments into a finish while avoiding another punishing battle at close range. Firmer officiating could help, but his own adjustments will have to do most of the work. Wardley cannot rely on the third man to solve that puzzle.
If Dubois is going to be stopped from barreling in head-first, Wardley has to make the physical cost of doing so intolerable, just like Oleksandr Usyk did.
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After positive steps towards making a fight, Devin Haney and Shakur Stevenson are said to be moving on after their teams could not finalise terms behind the scenes.
The pair of elite world champions have been linked throughout 2026, but the match-up appeared off the table earlier in the year due to a dispute over the weight.
Stevenson, who has fought just once at super-lightweight, wanted to meet at a catchweight of 144lbs, and was even said to be demanding a 10lbs rehydration clause.
Team Haney at first remained firm on the welterweight limit of 147lbs, where he beat Brian Norman Jr. last November to become WBO world champion.
Earlier this month, the fighters appeared to have a breakthrough, publicly agreeing to 145lbs on social media. Fans got excited, and predictions began flooding in.
Today, Stevenson said that, despite the initial agreement, he received an email from Haney’s lawyer saying that they were now switching back to 147lbs. Haney hit back, saying Stevenson ‘went missing for days’ after they had agreed to 145lbs, and that his rival ‘did everything’ for the fight not to happen.
Whoever is at fault, the fight now seems dead in the water.
Boxing Scene‘s Lance Pugmire now reports that Haney will revisit a fight with IBF champion Liam Paro. The Australian won the belt from Lewis Crocker in June and has since called on all champions in the division – Haney, Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez – to unify. Bill Haney, father and trainer to Devin, previously announced that November 28 in Atlanta was the target for his son’s return.
Who Stevenson now targets remains unclear, though fans will begin to criticise the inactivity. He has not been in the ring since an impressive victory over Teofimo Lopez in January, a particularly frustrating period of inactivity due to a high-profile promotional deal with Zuffa Boxing announced in July.
In the wake of a proposed clash between Shakur Stevenson and Devin Haney falling through, Tim Bradley believes one man, who he describes as the “biggest duck in boxing”, is solely responsible.
The two pound-for-pound stars were in talks to collide later this year, with November 28 and Atlanta having been suggested as the potential date and location, respectively.
According to Stevenson, however, negotiations reached an impasse at the “11th hour” due to Haney’s lawyer demanding that they fight at 147lbs.
This, if accurate, would have meant a refusal to meet at 145lbs, which both sides had seemingly decided was a sensible catchweight for their showdown.
But while Stevenson claims he was willing to jump up from 140lbs, the slick southpaw has accused Haney of going back on his promise to drop down from welterweight.
As a result, Hall of Famer Bradley has said on his YouTube channel that, in his mind, Devin and his father and trainer, Bill Haney, are to blame for the fight not happening.
“I’m gonna name you ‘Deebo Dev’ – the biggest duck in boxing. And all y’all thought it was Shakur Stevenson [avoiding Haney] all along.
“Bill [Haney]how you gonna get out of this one? What happened – you got cold feet? This man [Stevenson] gave up the weight; this man gave up some money.
“You got your lawyer involved. You said you wanted this fight – you agreed to 145[lbs] and all. Come on now – Shakur agreed to it as well. And now we can’t get the fight because you wanted it at 147[lbs]. Is that true, Bill?”
While Stevenson comes off a unanimous decision victory over Teofimo Lopez in January, Haney has not fought since dethroning Brian Norman Jr last November.
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