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St. Louis Blues bettor turns $400 Stanley Cup ticket into extremely unlikely, six-figure payday
(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
It's tough to imagine a happier fan base than the St. Louis Blues bunch, after the Blues hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first time in team history, defeating the Boston Bruins, 4-1, on Wednesday evening. One Blues fan, though, Scott Berry, will be celebrating a little harder than most, knowing he'll be cashing on a legendary ticket that has garnered him a ton of publicity amid gambling circles over the past couple of months.
As seen below in a tweet from the Action Network's Darren Rovell, Berry, an avid Blues fan, placed a $400 wager at a Vegas casino in January on the Blues to win the Stanley Cup. The Blues were in last place when he placed the bet, sitting at 250-1 odds. Berry had faith in his squad, and kept it throughout the playoffs—refusing a myriad of offers from the site PropSwap, which would've allowed him to sell his ticket to someone else for a guaranteed payout. And as it got down to it, Berry says he didn't even hedge the bet to bank some cash. He kept the faith, just like he did when he placed his original bet, and will end up cashing in on the $100,000 payday (though the IRS will take around 20 percent of the winnings ... still not too shabby).
“I feel like I’m in this with the team, and I don’t want to lay any of it off,” Berry told ESPN earlier this week. “I put the bet down in January for $400 to win $100,000. That was the bet. … I’m very superstitious and don’t want to ruin any juju.”
Here's the official ticket:
And here were the offers Berry refused off PropSwap.
Others would've seriously considered hedging out of his position, considering he only wagered $400 originally, to guarantee a profit. It paid off in a big way for Berry. Of course, it could've ended differently, as it did for the Texas Tech bettor who similarly turned down offerings to be bought out of his ticket off PropSwap, then ended up with nothing after Virginia beat the Red Raiders in the NCAA Tournament final.