'Mattress Mack' Loses Big On Super Bowl, But There's A Catch

'Mattress Mack' Jim McIngvale suffered massive Super Bowl gambling losses Sunday night when the Houston furniture slinging legend watched his Bengals moneyline bet go up in smoke when Joe Burrow and the Bengals offense stalled at midfield and the Rams won Super Bowl 56.

Mack's $4.5 million moneyline bet on the Bengals was officially dead. But there's a catch. McIngvale is well-known for placing bets to help even out the money he would stand to lose via in-store promotions.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Mattress Mack's store was running a deal where customers "who purchased a mattress set or reclining furniture priced at $3,000 more their money back if the Bengals won the game."

Between Sunday's loss and previous losses over the past five weeks, Mattress Mack has lost $15.4 million on sports bets. It's unclear how much of those losses were to offset store promotions and how much of the losses were Mack throwing f-you money at sports bets.

According to KPRC-Houston, Mack watched the Super Bowl with 70 military vets who deal with PTSD and suicidal tendencies. "To see those brave, valiant soldiers out there rebuilding their lives, it makes me losing a football game seem very, very minuscule,” Mack told the TV station.

In January, Mack had $2.7 million on Alabama to beat Georgia and over the course of the 2021 MLB season, he placed a total of $3.5 million in bets on the Astros to win the World Series.

McIngvale, who co-authored the book Always Think Big in 2002, set the record for the largest mobile wager in sports betting history when he placed $4.5 million on the Bengals. For those worried about Mattress Mack's net worth, keep in mind the legend of Mattress Mack was born in 1981 when he was down to his final $10,000 and decided to spend it on TV advertising.

The legend of how Mattress Mack was born goes like this.

"One evening near midnight after closing the store, he went down to the television station to watch his commercial being produced," the story goes.

"'Mack' didn't like how the commercial was going and his studio time was running out fast. At the last minute, he took over as the pitchman and improvised for thirty seconds talking as fast as he could, extolling the virtues of Gallery Furniture. As the clock ticked down to the last seconds, he reached into his back pocket and retrieved that day's store receipts, then held up the fistful of dollars, leapt into the air and shrieked that Gallery Furniture will 'save you money!'"

And now Mack can gamble $4.5 million in cash on the Super Bowl.

Don't worry about Mack and his money. He'll be just fine. This is just another bump in the road on a wild American journey.