Al Michaels Won Gamblers A Bunch Of Money By Intentionally Sabotaging A ‘Deflategate’ Bet

This weekend’s Sunday Night Football match-up saw the Patriots and Colts meet for the first time since last season’s AFC Championship game, where the seemingly endless Deflategate saga was born. Of course, there was plenty of hype and speculation heading into the SNF matchup in Indy, and much of that talk surrounded the air pressure controversy that nearly cost Tom Brady the first four games of this season.

The online sportsbook Bovada even allowed fans to bet on how many times NBC’s broadcast team of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth would say the word “Deflategate” as a prop bet, setting the over/under at 2.5 mentions. For anyone who has followed the NFL (or sports in general) this year, that seemed like an awfully low bar for a story that swallowed up headlines over much of the past nine months. So, it’s likely that a whole lot of people bet the over.

Those people had to have huge smiles on their faces during Sunday’s broadcast, when Michaels — often sneakily aware of gambling lines — addressed the prop bet and then promptly smashed the over by repeating “Deflategate” four times in a row. It was a pretty hilarious bit of sabotage, and one that Bovada has decided to honor.

Excellent job by Michaels to line the pockets of the bettors smart enough to take the over. My question is: If he was aware of the bet and knew that he could take it over (either subtly or mockingly), did he bet on it himself and make some quick cash? He’d be irresponsible not to, right?

(Via Awful Announcing)

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