The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 8 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on April 30, 2021.
By Michael Dean ’21
Staff Writer
It was the fourth quarter in Super Bowl LV with about five minutes left on the clock. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were up 31-9 against the Kansas City Chiefs, making the game practically over, when a man wearing a pink thong bathing suit dashed onto the field. Eventually being tackled to the ground by security, no one had any idea that Yuri Andrade was not your average streaker.
Just before the biggest sporting event of the year, Andrade stumbled upon an opportunity of a lifetime: streak during the Super Bowl and win big.
Andrade had noticed that Bovada, a premiere gambling website, had put up a bet on whether someone would streak at the Super Bowl or not. If you bet that there would be a streaker and you won, then you would win seven and a half times the amount you bet.
According to Andrade, he already had intentions of streaking at the Super Bowl. After seeing this bet on the site, he thought, if I’m going to do it, why not get paid? So, he called up some of his buddies and they all placed multiple separate bets on the website at the max allowed of $1,000.
Although winning big, Andrade had one fault in his plan. After partaking in the stunt, he disclosed in an interview that he had made the bets and explained his whole plan on how he did it. He even mentioned that he used Bovada to place the bets.
Taking immediate action, Bovada paused all payouts for the bet and only allowed payouts to those who were confirmed to have no ties to Andrade. The Andrade’s stunt was borderline “match fixing,” something that greatly upset the betting site.
“This is going to change sports betting forever,” said Tucker Gill ’21, a student at Lake Forest College who is an avid sports better. Gill mentioned how payouts would look a lot different for those “gimmicky” bets, as 7.5-to-1 odds are something you probably will not see again for a while.
It will be no surprise to see betting websites taking greater precaution in the bets they put out, as well as adding maximum bet limits to more bets. In some cases, the websites are lowering the maximum limits to prevent people from cashing out big by taking odds into their own hands. Something as simple as a bet on what color Gatorade will be dumped on the winning coach has the potential to be tampered with.
“I’ve heard of players telling their friends what color to bet on because they were going to dump the Gatorade themselves,” added Henry Light ’22, a Lake Forest College student who identifies as an avid sports bettor.
With online sports betting becoming legal in 2019 and the first legal sports bet having taken place on March 9, 2020, it will be interesting to see how this stunt affects many states and their sports betting laws.
