Man Wins $50,000 Betting on Safety as Opening Super Bowl Score

The New York Football Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17 in Sunday’s nail-biting Super Bowl rematch. But the real winner tonight was a man identified on Twitter only as Jona.

After Super Bowl XLVI’s unusual opening score — a safety of Tom Brady — @BenjaminLyons tweeted that his friend Jona had made the best bet of the night. Unless this ticket can be proven to be fake, Jona bet $1,000 at 50-1 odds and made $50,000 for himself on the Patriots’ opening offensive play.

Considering how few safeties there have been in Super Bowl history (seven), and considering how Jona bet it for the first score of the game, the odds actually seem really low. But good on this dude anyway. That’s a really easy way to lose $1,000 quickly, but you gotta bet big to win big. Maybe Jona can go out and buy himself a pair of underwear that can properly support his huge set.

UPDATE: We spoke with Lyons via Twitter after the game, who says Jona had another winning ticket for $8,500 on just a safety, and that he won $90,000 total on the game.

UPDATE II: The man was later fully identified as Jona Rechnitz, who owns a capital investment firm in NYC. He says he plans to donate the money to charity. Good on ya!

(via @VivekRamgopal)

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