This Brutal Busted Bet On Carlos Alcaraz’s Shocking US Open Loss Would’ve Put Me In The Fetal Position

Matt Fitzgerald·
CULTURESPORTS
·
Tennis match
@USOpen

Carlos Alcaraz just turned 21 in May. He settled for the silver medal at the Summer Olympics, and with plenty of those ahead, the Spaniard sensation will have plenty more cracks at the gold.

Same goes for tennis’ four major tournaments. Alcaraz won the US Open in 2022, successfully defended his Wimbledon title in his previous Grand Slam start, and added the French Open to his rapidly growing collection of prestigious hardware this year, too.

But with how elite the guy is on the court, you’d expect him to at least get to the quarterfinals at each major from here on out. That’s the kind of steady greatness we’ve come to expect from the likes of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and even the recently retired Andy Murray in his heyday.

Unfortunately, Alcaraz suffered a serious letdown on Thursday night at the US Open, losing in straight sets to unheralded Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp.

The only person down worse than Alcaraz had to be in the aftermath of that stunning loss was the bettor who thought it’d be a bright idea to bet twenty-five thousand dollars on Alcaraz’s moneyline to win only $250. Yes, this actually happened.

As someone who bets on occasion and has learned a few hard lessons about why it’s best (for me) to just stick to the NFL, I can confidently say I’ve never bet anywhere near $25,000 on anything.

Alcaraz was such a heavy favorite that I’m actually having a hard time quantifying just how much of a favorite he was. Minus 10,000 odds? That means you’d have to bet $10,000 to win $100. I don’t care how much of a “lock” somebody or some team is. Never do that. Ever.

Risking $25,0000 just to win $250 is some of the wildest, degenerate betting behavior I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t be able to breathe, nor would I probably want to. It’d just be a series of exhaling, agonizing, inhuman sounds.

Hopefully this bettor was just bored out of their brain cells and has all kinds of cash to burn. Otherwise, it’s a shame this couldn’t have been donated to a philanthropic cause or something. Because damn, talk about lightning money on fire.

Alcaraz will be OK for the long haul. Not so sure about this bettor. I’m getting super anxious and stressed just thinking about sweating that out.

Having seen some pretty severe gamblers in my day, if this person threw down $25K on Alcaraz to start, it feels like the type of situation where they’d just keep riding him live, during the match. The odds would be a lot more appetizing to bet on as Alcaraz kept losing point after point, set after set. The bettor had to figure he’d turn it around at some point. Somebody else on Sports Betting Twitter fell victim to this. Ruh-roh.

Ben The Bettor tweeting through the pain. Sorry bro. Riding Botic live was the way to go at a certain point.

All told, the $25K-betting individual likely lost even more than $25,000 with all those inferred follow-up bets. Can almost guarantee he took a page out of Ben The Bettor’s playbook. Hoping that wasn’t the case, but that tends to be the way. Chasing losses is bad enough. Preemptively chasing losses may be the worst gambling pain cave you can possibly be in.

Great. Can’t wait to have nightmares about this!

A beer bottle on a dock

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