Sports wagering can often be about luck, but there’s more than luck involved in hitting on four NFL games against the spread every single week for the entire season.
For one NFL fan in Michigan, Super Bowl LI’s stunning comeback wasn’t just about winning a single-game bet; it was about the culmination of the perfect betting season—and a $1M payout.
Dominic Mirabella, a Royal Oak, Michigan resident, will received $1M over the next ten years from FourPlay Football for correctly nailing 81 straight NFL games against the spread this season. You read that correctly: 81-for-81.
Here’s how he did it, per The Detroit News:
Mirabella’s story, previously reported by Channel 7/WXYZ, wasn’t a result of betting one game properly, but dozens of games, from the first week of the NFL regular season through the Super Bowl. Mirabella won the money using an app called FourPlay Football, a Birmingham-based company. This required successful bets against “the spread” in four games a week, all 17 weeks of the regular season, as well as games throughout the playoffs, 81 in all. Jeff Johnson, co-creator of the FourPlay app along with partner CJ Karchon, told The News Monday that Mirabella had to be lucky as well as good to win. In week three, Mirabella made his move too late. He had to buy in using a “late picker power up” to participate. Late picks are made randomly by the app. Mirabella still went 4 for 4 on those random picks.
After going 80-for-80 to reach Super Bowl LI within a game of something special, Mirabella had to watch New England fall down 28-3 before a miraculous comeback.
How did he feel during the game?
“It was like a morgue” when the Patriots were down 28-3, a 25-point deficit, in the third quarter, Mirabella said.
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Even New England’s stunning comeback didn’t seal it. With the game coming in as a three-point spread, a field-goal victory for New England in overtime would have been a push—meaning a loss for Mirabella. The only way he could have won when the game went to overtime was how it actually ended: A Patriots touchdown.
The greatest dynasty in NFL history just made a fan for life.
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Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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