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A couple of years ago, Tiger Woods said there was a chance he’d never play professional golf again and it didn’t seem too far-fetched based on the injuries and personal problems that have plagued him over the past decade or so.
However, our boy Eldrick managed to overcome the adversity he’s faced, and on Sunday, he proved himself and all of the haters wrong when he won his 15th major—and his fifth green jacket (kind of)—after a vintage performance at Augusta.
There were plenty of people who were thrilled to see Woods make his triumphant return but I’m willing to bet no one was more excited about his victory than James Adducci, the 39-year-old Wisconsin man who bet $85,000 on Tiger to beat the field at Augusta and won a cool $1.2 million for his troubles.
Plenty of people cleaned up by betting on Tiger but no one reaped the spoils more than Adduci, a longtime professional gambler who…wait. Sorry. What I meant to say is he had never bet on sports in his entire life.
On Monday, Adduci returned to Vegas to collect his winnings at the unlucky sportsbook that approved his wager before thanking them for their retroactively poor judgment.
James Adducci with his winning tickets. “I feel fortunate that @WilliamHillUS allowed me to place the wager” pic.twitter.com/VqJqh3BhQX
— Gaming Today (@GamingTodayNews) April 15, 2019
According to The New York Post, Adduci—who is a self-employed day trader—decided to break his sports betting cherry by cashing in on some failed Amazon stock and filling a backpack with money before heading to a casino to put—as he said— everything he could afford to lose on the line.
It’s safe to say it worked out pretty well for him,
Adduci explained the motivation behind the bet, saying:
“It wasn’t about the odds for me. My reasons for thinking that he was going to win were more personal, about where he is at in his career and his life.”
Not too bad for a hunch.