The ever so slightly annoying thing about this bet, is that although we know it happened, we don’t know how much Walters won.
This is because he will have placed his bet in many different instalments and perhaps even at slightly different odds, and what with his tendency for secrecy we will probably never get a definitive answer.
New Orleans were at 18-1 at the start of the season, but we can be fairly certain Walters didn’t get those odds because no bookmakers went out of business directly after the game.
It’s more likely that he placed the bet in the days running up to the game so the odds on both teams would have shortened dramatically, but with the Colts being the favourites he probably got close to evens, which is why we have guessed at 4/5 or 1.8 in decimal.
By these odds, Walters will have won about $2.8 million on top of his stake, by betting on a team that had never won a Superbowl before.
Pretty ballsy.
How the Bet was Won
The Colts were 5.5 point favourites going into the game, and in the first quarter they showed why, scoring a superb touchdown from some text book play, and ending the quarter with a 10-0 lead.
The New Orleans Saints managed to pull 6 points back in the second without conceding further, but the best was yet to come.
The Saints took control of the game in the second half with a superb touchdown and some fancy footwork from Thomas, making the score 16-10 and giving New Orleans their first ever lead in a Superbowl. The Colts answered with a touchdown of their own though, and it was 17-16 going into the 4th.
A missed field goal in the 4th made Indianapolis nervous, and when the Saints managed another touchdown with a 2 point conversion just a few minutes later they really started to sweat it.
The defining moment of the game though, came 3 minutes before the end, when Porter brilliantly intercepted a pass that confused the Colts so much he was able to storm 75 yards down the field to claim one of the cheekiest touchdowns in Superbowl history.
The game ended 31-17, with the New Orleans Saints winning their first ever Superbowl, and with Billy Walters winning an awful lot of money.