NBA Bettor Turns 77 Cents Into $18K After Hitting A Virtually Impossible Parlay

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One of my favorite conspiracy theories is that lotteries like Powerball and Mega Millions are actually part of a covert operation that allows the federal government to track down and identify people who’ve unlocked the secret to time travel.

Is there any proof that’s actually the case? Of course not, but that’s not going to stop me from floating a similar hypothesis concerning one of the more popular forms of sports betting: parlays.

Gamblers love that particular approach to betting because it gives you the opportunity to take home a truly absurd amount of money with a fairly tiny wager—just sportsbooks love them because the vast majority of parlays fail to hit.

With that said, there are plenty of success stories that revolve around lucky bettors who were able to defy the odds en route to securing a very, very hefty payday.

That includes more than a few people who’ve stacked “First Basket” bets in NBA games to get a massive return on their investment, like the fan who turned a quarter into more than $6,000  and another who threw down 50 cents and was rewarded with a $130K payout.

The primary reason those returns are so high is that it’s pretty hard to guess which player is going to score the first basket in a single game, so successfully predicting the person who will do in multiple contests is no small feat.

However, someone who hopped on FanDuel on Thursday night opted to increase the level of difficulty with a three-leg parlay that required them to guess who would net the first basket and the exact manner in which the player in question scored (which the platform officially refers to as a “Method of First Basket” wager).

The bettor in question placed 77 cents on a bet that had to potential to cash to the tune of $18,018 (if you somehow can’t do that math in your head, the odds were +2339900).

In order to hit, they needed Bam Adebayo to open up the scoring with a layup, Cameron Johnson to do the same with a shot from beyond the arc, and Al Horford to kick things off with anything that wasn’t a dunk, layup, three-pointer, or free throw—which is somehow exactly what ended up happening.

I can only assume they have a sports almanac published at the end of this year hidden somewhere in their house.