The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Washington Redskins 29-20 on Monday Night Football. That score was 23-20 until the Redskins final play when, on offense, they fumbled the ball on a series of laterals and Chiefs LB Justin Houston picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown as time expired.
I was only slightly annoyed because I had to go into my recap I was writing and change all the “23-20” references to “29-20” (and knowing I was definitely going to miss an obvious one like in the headline and have you all laugh at me).
If I were a gambler, I would have been very, very annoying ... or very, very happy depending on who I had money on. Why would gamblers care about that touchdown that made it a 9-point Chiefs win instead of a 3-point win? The spread.
The Chiefs settled as about 6.5-point favorites. They led by three before that last play, and the touchdown covered the spread. It also got the total points scored to 49, surpassing an over/under that was either 47.5 or 48, depending on the sportsbook.
This ESPN report says that the Houston touchdown was worth $100,000 to one gambler.
The last-play defensive touchdown caused an approximately $350,000 swing against the house at Las Vegas sportsbook operator CG Technology, according to vice president of risk Jason Simbal, who added that $100,000 of that loss came from one big bet on the Chiefs -7.