Can I Sell a Sports Bet before It's Resolved?

If I bought a futures ticket on the Red Sox to win the World Series at 60-1 and a miracle occurred and they won the pennant, is there a legal place to sell the ticket in Las Vegas and walk away with a few thousand? Would a sports book buy the ticket back at a significant discount?

[Editor's Note: This answer is penned by Logan Fields, author of our book 20/20 Sports Betting.]

If you placed $100 on the Red Sox to win the World Series at 60-1 and their odds were even money to win the seven-game series, your ticket would be worth roughly $3,000, or half of the value of a winning ticket.

Surely somebody in Vegas would want to take advantage of your jangled nerves and make some kind of offer.

PropSwap was founded in Vegas in 2015 for this very purpose. You could take your ticket to PropSwap and tell them exactly how much you wanted to sell it for. They posted your ticket online and, provided your sale price was reasonable, a buyer most likely stepped forward. PropSwap took a 10% commission on all ticket sales, so after the dust settled, you'd collect around $2,500 of the $3,000 value.

Unfortunately, this is no longer possible. The Gaming Control Board ordered PropSwap to cease operations in Nevada in 2021, on the basis that it was a gambling operation and PropSwap didn't have a license. PropSwap operates in 20 other states and is continuing to fight this decision in the court system.

Retail sports books in Vegas don't currently offer early cashouts on physical tickets, but they're gaining in popularity on mobile apps. If you placed the Red Sox wager on a mobile app, you'd likely get offers to cash it out. The problem is that the books know they have no cashout competition for the wager you placed with them and as such, their cashout offers often border on the ridiculous, nowhere near the true value of your pending wager.

If you're stuck with the physical ticket, your best option to lock in profits would simply be to place a $3,000 wager on the other team. So whether the Red Sox win or lose the World Series, your profit would come close to $3,000.

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Comments

King of the Bovines Sep-23-2024

The big problem

Your average gambler that has a futures or parlay set to win big does not have the capital to properly hedge their wager to get the actual expected value of their ticket.

Scrounging up the $3k for the Red Sox example is a real challenge for most gamblers.

And the PropSwap takes 10% commission on the sale - the buyer isn't going to offer the full expected value, so there's some more percentage points lost in the transaction.

(Unless PropSwap can buy the ticket themselves, and pocket the 10% - but I don't know if they can do that.)

In a perfect world, one would simply bet $3k on the other side and call it a day.

But your average gambler does not live in this perfect world...

Sandra Ritter Sep-23-2024

I don't get it

Not being a sports better, why wouldn't someone want to cash in on their full winnings? What am I missing?

Dave Sep-23-2024

SANDRA

Could be a tax thing, could be he wants to keep a low profile from whatever powers might be (the Irs or such). There are some strange going-ons out there.

Randall Ward Sep-23-2024

commenters not understanding

to be clear, in this scenario Red Sox haven't played World Series yet, he obviously wouldn't sell it after the Series.

Jon Miller Sep-23-2024

Clarification for Sandra

In the example given, the Red Sox "win the pennant".   This would mean they will then participate in the World Series.   In order to win that future bet, which is based upon winning the World Series, the Red Sox would have to win a best of 7 games series against the winner of the National League "pennant".   That's a lot of money to risk so the person who made the futures bet is trying to ensure they win a good amount, while conceding their chance to win the full amount (because they get zilch if the Red Sox eventually lose.   Which they would because the Red Sox are choke artists.)   Sorry!  Gratuitous swipe from this Yankee fan- too easy :)

Kevin Lewis Sep-23-2024

Football contest angle

I thought of how someone might be playing in something like Circa Survivor and with one week to go, how they might, let's say, win $6 million if they pick correctly but get bupkus if they guess wrong. Is there a market, formal or informal, legal or illegal, to hedge that kind of bet? If I were in that position, I'd obviously bet every dime I had on the other side of my pick, but no way would that be enough for a true hedge. Where could I sell a piece or pieces of my action?
I know that players reaching the final table of the WSOP Main Event routinely do that.

Raymond Sep-23-2024

Hey Jon Miller!

I have two numbers for you--1960 (I'm a Pirates fan, sad to say); and 2004.  That's without even mentioning how many World Series the Red Sox have won this century and how many the Almighty Yankees have won, or how many years it's been since your team was even in it.

To those who are wondering about this--Yankee fans love to throw around how many World Series their team has won, regardless of how long ago their titles were (their last, and only one this century, was in 2009).  Like the Cowboys in American football or Manchester United in the Premier League.  Mostly true fans but sometimes obnoxious.

Fumb Duck Sep-23-2024

Thanks

Since I have no interest in sports, I didn't understand the question or the answer until I read the comments.

PS: I did attend the opening game when the Dodgers moved to L.A.

Question of the Day - 23 September 2024

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