Wide World Of Gambling: Largest NFL Bet Of Season, Mattress Mack Returns, Scheinberg Sentence, Mob-Like Tactics From Vegas Casino

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Brian served as a senior reporter and online content manager for Card Player Magazine for nearly a decade before joining USBets in October 2018. He is currently focused on legal and regulated sports betting and online gaming. He's an avid jiu-jitsu practitioner in his free time.

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It was another news-filled week in the world of gambling.

In this installment of a weekly roundup from US Bets, we’re giving you a rundown of some of the more interesting new nuggets from the world of sports betting and beyond.

Also be sure to check out Sports Handle for its weekly news recap, “Get a Grip.”

Gambler loses $35K to win $1K on NFL bet

Some bad beats make you wonder if the gambler if OK, and this is one of them. Looking at a -3333 line with the Atlanta Falcons up 39-24 in the fourth quarter, a Las Vegas gambler reportedly bet $35,000 to win just over $1,000. You know what happened next.

To be fair to the gambler, it was a historic comeback for the Cowboys. The Falcons had zero turnovers in the game, and according to ESPN, the game was the first time ever that a team scoring 39 or more points with zero turnovers lost a game since turnovers started being tracked in 1933. ESPN had the Falcons at a 99.9% win probability with just a few minutes left in the game.

‘Mattress Mack’ returns to gamble on Astros

The world’s most famous Houston Astros gambler is back, sort of. After betting millions of dollars on the ‘Stros last year as a hedge against his own mattress promotion, Jim McIngvale, better known as “Mattress Mack,” is a believer this year despite the team’s barely .500 record. He reportedly bet $10,000 on the team at 30/1 in Las Vegas this week. Surely he’ll bet more if the Astros advance in the postseason.

Isai Scheinberg avoids jail stemming from ‘Stars days

If you’re very wealthy, the American criminal justice system will often take it very, very easy on you. That’s what happened this week to Isai Scheinberg, though he’s hardly a notorious figure. Scheinberg, one of the men behind the PokerStars online poker site that was kicked out of U.S. cyberspace as part of the industry’s Black Friday in 2011, received a mere $30,000 fine for a charge related to illegal gambling. Scheinberg had been a fugitive for many years. He could have received up to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty. In 2014, PokerStars was sold to then Amaya Gaming for nearly $5 billion. Scheinberg is the last of the 11 Black Friday defendants to be sentenced. Some received prison time.

Largest reported NFL bet so far

Football season is when the sportsbooks are the busiest. The bets are also the largest. According to Ben Fawkes at VSiN, DraftKings Sportsbook in New Jersey this week took the largest reported bet of the season thus far, a whopping $795,200 punt on Thursday night’s game.

Phil Ivey vs. Borgata legal saga wraps up

Poker legend Phil Ivey, who turned to high-stakes baccarat sessions using a technique called “edge sorting” in the wake of the fallout from Full Tilt Poker’s demise nearly a decade ago, finally is out of the woods with regard to litigation with the Borgata casino in Atlantic City. Ivey and a playing partner beat the joint out of about $10 million, and the two sides finally reached an out-of-court settlement.

Galfond to try to prove Postle cheating allegations

One of poker’s sharpest minds, Phil Galfond, is apparently greatly irked by recent comments from those denying the cheating allegations against controversial poker player Mike Postle. Galfond, a WSOP bracelet winner, now has an immense fire under his butt to prove that Postle wasn’t playing fairly in live cash games a couple of years ago in California. This story is far from over.

Las Vegas casino fined for mob-like tactics

The Nevada Gaming Control Board on Thursday handed down a $300,000 fine against Boyd Gaming for what appears to be the illegal detention of a gambler falsely accused of stealing $200. The Nevada deputy attorney general compared what happened to the mob era of Las Vegas when “a casino manager who suspected someone of cheating would have security officers grab the person and haul them into a back room and threaten them with bodily harm if they did not leave the premises.”

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