TLDR
- A Polymarket account bought 171,703 Arizona Cardinals shares at 1.4 cents with Arizona down 27-17 and 3:54 left.
- The Cardinals beat the Dallas Cowboys 33-30 in overtime.
- The account hedged its position and finished about $118,500 ahead on the moneyline.
- Polymarket and Kalshi prices implied just 1% to 2% odds of an Arizona win.
- Top sports trader BreakTheBank made about $215,000 on Arizona and ended Sunday roughly $625,000 ahead.
A Polymarket account turned a long-shot bet on the Arizona Cardinals into a profit of about $118,500 on Sunday. The account bought Cardinals shares at 1.4 cents each while Arizona trailed the Dallas Cowboys by 10 points with under four minutes left.
Arizona came back to win 33-30 in overtime. The account hedged its position several times during the game before collecting its payout.
A 1.4-Cent Bet With 3:54 Left
The account, trading under the name CutJalenHurts, bought 171,703 Cardinals shares at 1.4 cents apiece. The order cost about $2,475.
The purchase came about a minute after Dallas kicker Brandon Aubrey made a 35-yard field goal. That kick put the Cowboys up 27-17 with 3:54 left in the game.
The price matched the wider market at the time. Polymarket’s moneyline traded at about 1.5 cents in the minutes after the field goal, while Kalshi’s Cardinals contract traded as low as 1 cent. Those prices implied odds of 1% to 2% for an Arizona win.
Gardner Minshew II then threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Trey McBride with 2:11 left. Dallas recovered the onside kick, and Aubrey added a 41-yard field goal for a 30-24 lead with 1:09 to go.
Minshew then led Arizona on an 80-yard drive. He found Michael Wilson for a 13-yard touchdown with six seconds left.
Kicker Chad Ryland missed the extra point, which sent the game to overtime. He then made a 42-yard field goal to win it.
How the Account Hedged Its Bets
The account started the day backing Dallas. It bought about 51,000 Cowboys shares at 76 to 77 cents just after kickoff.
After the 1.4-cent purchase, it added 4,616 more Cardinals shares at about 13 cents following Aubrey’s second field goal. Once the game was tied, the user bought about 24,000 more Cowboys shares at 57 to 70 cents.
During overtime, the account merged 74,948 matched Cardinals and Cowboys pairs back into $74,948 in cash. This locked in a profit of roughly $17,000 no matter which team won. Its remaining Cardinals shares then paid out $101,370, or one dollar each.
In total, the account put about $57,800 into the moneyline and took out about $176,300. Its Polymarket profile shows a $135,754 gain on the Cardinals position and a $17,219 loss on the Cowboys.
The split comes from how Polymarket divides merge proceeds between the two sides. The two figures net to the same $118,500 profit.
Late swings have also gone the other way for Polymarket traders. Last month, another account was eight seconds from a $623,449 payout when a 57-yard field goal as time expired wiped out its $147,000 Eagles bet.
Arizona’s win also paid off for BreakTheBank, one of Polymarket’s biggest sports traders. The account made about $215,000 on the Cardinals across moneyline and spread bets. It bought its moneyline shares at an average price of 24 cents.
Across Sunday’s NFL games, BreakTheBank’s settled positions show about $1.82 million in gains. Its largest wins were $826,000 on the Washington Commanders’ 27-10 Sunday night win over the Philadelphia Eagles and $493,000 on the Las Vegas Raiders.
The account also recorded about $1.2 million in losses including fees, mostly on the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cleveland Browns. That leaves it roughly $625,000 ahead on the day’s NFL bets.
