An overwhelming majority of bets for Thursday night’s game were on the Dallas Cowboys. Of all the money wagered on the spread at BetMGM, 85% was on the Cowboys on Thursday afternoon.
That means a lot of angry people went to bed late on Thursday evening.
The Cowboys didn’t play that well, but the way the end of the game unfolded was seemingly perfect for all those people the Cowboys brought along. Dallas closed as 5.5-point favorites and led 20-15 late in the game. Dallas bettors needed one more score to cover. The Giants failed on a fourth down, and the Cowboys’ drive couldn’t eat up the rest of the clock. They decided to send in Brandon Aubrey for a 51-yard field goal in the final minute. It seemed like a happy holiday.
Aubrey was pretty much automatic during his NFL career. He had never missed a field goal of 50 yards or longer before lining up for that field goal in the final minute. He hit a 60-yarder earlier in the game and he’s made 60-yard kicks look easy. A 51-yarder for Aubrey seemed like a slam dunk, as Al Michaels joked on the Amazon Prime Video broadcast about how some people were thrilled to see Aubrey coming for the kick.
Then those people watched in horror as Aubrey missed a long field goal for the first time in his career. The stairs immediately went to the right and stayed there. The Cowboys got an interception in the final seconds and the final score was a 20-15 Cowboys victory.
Hopefully Post Malone, who is known to have bet on the Cowboys and showed up to Thursday night’s game wearing an Aubrey jersey because the musical artist and kicker are friends, didn’t take his favorite team and get the points. Everyone seemed to do that.
For 85% of people, they had confidence in the Cowboys and were ready to win a bet on them in a minute. Of all the ways to lose, the NFL’s best kicker making a field goal wasn’t on their radar.
