The Longest Shot

October 24, 2020

What is the longest shot sports outcome you can think of? There’s the go-to Buster Douglas boxing upset over Mike Tyson. The New York Jets were 19-point underdogs in Super Bowl III to the Baltimore Colts. How about the Rochester Rhinos winning the US Open Cup by beating three MLS teams along the way in 1999? One of the great moments in Rochester sports history by the way.

But these events all pale in comparison to a bet that was taken at the Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas just last week. Someone put 40 dollars on the New York Jets to win the Super Bowl. At 5000-1 odds. That’s a 200,000-dollar payoff. You won’t get better odds on me winning the Boston Marathon, coming off knee surgery.

The Jets are 0-6. They’ve failed to cover the spread all six times. They’re losing to the spread by an average of better than 11 points. Vegas is taking serious action on an 0-16 season. 5000-1 sounds like a sucker bet. It makes playing the lottery look like an investment.
Note to the Buffalo Bills Sunday. Please don’t lose to these guys.

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Category: Buffalo Bills, Press Box
Tag: Bill Pucko, Buffalo Bills, Las Vegas Odds, New York Jets

Published by Bill Pucko

Bill Pucko has spent over three decades as a broadcast journalist working in television, radio and print. He was the featured sportscaster on Rochester’s YYN and WHEC-TV, awarded the Rochester Press and Radio Club’s Sportscaster of the Year Award three times and inducted onto the Frontier Field Walk of Fame in 2006. Bill is a co-founder of Classy Wolf Media, a television and video production company currently syndicating two weekly sports programs, The High School Sports Beat and The Press Box, on WHAM-TV and FOX Rochester. View all posts by Bill Pucko