A Surefire Wager
These Eagles Are A Sure Thing On the Field And An Incredibly Popular Wager Off Of It.
Two years ago, while traveling for work, I boarded a busy Philadelphia downtown train during the Eagles’ run to Super Bowl LVII.
As it’s been since the days of the Reading Railroad in Philly in the 1830s, the train is the way to travel around the city, and it is important to ingress from all points of the Delaware Valley region.
This week, a gambler in Kentucky placed a $3.1 million wager with the -700 odds for Philadelphia to beat the Carolina Panthers. The payout — should the Eagles win — would be $442,800.00.
It is the largest wager that Circa Sports has ever taken.
PHOTO: ClutchPoints
Also, as a Philly tradition, this downtown train was packed. I took the only seat available across from an elderly gentleman whom I hardly paid attention to.
After some time, he looked up from his newspaper and noticed the case on my phone with a withered iconic Kelly Green backdrop and the bald Eagle clutching a leather pigskin in its talons.
His eyes narrowed as he asked:
“What do you think about the Eagles this year? Their chances, I mean?”
Before I could even begin to formulate an answer, he launched into a twenty-minute monologue not only about his love for the Eagles — but how, since Andy Reid had resurrected the team from the depths of mediocrity in the early 2000s — the Eagles were an almost sure-fire bet in the world of NFL wagering.
Sitting upright and leaning against his weathered and worn topcoat, he described his wagering strategies in advance of a Birds’ game in detail, even attributing his winnings to his leather-worn pair of loafers that he proudly showed off in the aisle.
You may have noticed over the last two weeks of Philadelphia Eagles road games in Los Angeles and Baltimore — that the stands in Sofi and M&T Bank Stadium — have been filled with seas of green at game time. The Eagles are a Super Bowl contender and one of the most popular NFL Teams, with nearly 15 million social media followers.
During his diatribe, I couldn’t help but think about the Kenny Rogers song and subsequent TV Movie released forty-five years ago, The Gambler, about an elderly roller of the dice who befriends a man on a train and trades him whiskey for poker advice. On this day, I had no internal antifreeze to offer. After a half-hour more, I reached my stop and stepped from the train, wishing both he and the Eagles the best of luck.
I cannot help but wonder if that bold gambler with a sure-fire system of success-wagering on the Eagles could have placed a Midwest wager on the Eagles, planning a lifetime of retirement from the payout that he knew was coming.
One thing is certain: win or lose — in the cold hours of post-game Sunday — the gambler will not break even.
Not on this wager.
PHOTO: ClutchPoints
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Categorized:Eagles Sports Betting