A local Florida TV reporter broke the international betting market on Friday on one of the most popular Super Bowl proposals with 2 minutes and 16 seconds video he posted on Twitter.
Zach Maskavich, a multimedia journalist for Orlando’s WESH Channel 2, was working from his car in the parking lot of Hillsborough Community College, across from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Super Bowl LV, when he heard the rehearsal for the national anthem. .
This is the first Super Bowl covered by 31-year-old Maskavich, and all week his friends had asked him to keep an eye out for insider information on everything from the color of the Gatorada used by the teams to information about pre-game and musical performances at the break. So when artists Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church began performing the rehearsal of the national anthem, Maskavich pulled out his phone and made a video about it while the performance lasted.
Betting on the length of the national anthem at the Super Bowl has long been one of the most popular news bets on international sports books. Bettors and bettors search the internet for previous shows for any clues. State regulators do not allow U.S. sports books to offer betting because of fears of corruption, but it has not prevented bettors – domestic and foreign – from understanding how long the national anthem will last each year.
Over / under for Sullivan and Church’s duet was two minutes early on Friday, but that would change quickly. Maskavich released his video at 18:30 ET, showing that the rehearsal lasted 2 minutes and 16 seconds. In Australia, PointsBet reported an explosion of action that occurred shortly after the video was released, prompting them to stop betting on props.
“I just thought it was pretty funny,” Maskavich told ESPN on Saturday. “Some of the answers were hilarious; some people are really crazy.”
Several sports books reported that they earned money over several hours before Maskavich posted his video. Pinnacle Sports, an online sports book based in Curacao, had over / under set at 1:58, with -110 chances to bet on both sides. Around 3:30 p.m., Pinnacle began receiving enough over bets to raise the price to -1,500 before the bookmaker stopped betting.
Betonline.ag, a Panama-based online sportsbook, said it received about two dozen $ 250 limit bets on fish during a three-minute stretch around 3 p.m. Friday.
“Almost every year there is a leak of the national anthem and we see a wave of unilateral action a few days before the game,” Dave Mason, Betonline’s brand manager, said on Saturday. “Yesterday that wave of action was more suspicious than in previous years. In a few seconds I took about two dozen maximum bets from clearer accounts. They continued to bet from 2:00 to 2:10. At that time we knew there was some very strong intelligence out there, so we decided to reduce the quota. “
Living in Florida without legal sports card options, Maskavich said he is not a gambler, but he knew people were interested in the national anthem.
“I had the feeling that he would gain a little traction, leading to the Super Bowl, and people like to bet on the prop,” Maskavich said on Saturday morning. “But I didn’t think it would explode the way it did. People come up to me, wondering if Vegas paid me to do this and all the other crazy birds.”
This is not the first time Maskavich has gone viral. In 2018, while covering a high school game, a video with him hit with a football arrived on SportsCenter “Not Top 10.” However, he was taken aback by the responses he received on Twitter for his national anthem post. Some called him a “man of the people” for transmitting information; others were upset because I think he ruined the action and made the cards stop betting. One person said he would not rest until he was fired.
However, Maskavich’s favorite answers referred to his unfortunate collision with football. “The quarterback should have thrown it harder,” wrote a respondent who redistributed the video.