Teacher at Center of BetMGM Cancelled $214K Bet Controversy Says He Saw Nothing Wrong With Odds

SPRINGFIELD, Va. — After a three-week ordeal that saw the highest of highs, the lowest of lows and then the highest of highs again, Virginia high school teacher Kris Benton is just glad the ordeal is over.

He is, of course, the now-famous special education math teacher and soccer coach at West Springfield High School in suburban Washington, D.C., who won $214,500 betting on women’s World Cup soccer with sportsbook BetMGM.

He wagered a total of a few thousand dollars on three same-game, two-leg parlays on the August 1 Netherlands vs. Vietnam women’s World Cup soccer game, with each parlay going off at 66 to 1 odds.

He won all three parlays, but when he tried to collect his winnings, BetMGM told him his wagers had been made at “incorrect odds,” and therefore the book had the right to void the bets, which it did.

Benton was having none of it.

As a former high school soccer Coach of the Year in his district, he knew how to fight to win.

So he took on Big Gamble.

And won.

Immediately after BetMGM denied Benton his winnings, he went on a media jihad against the Las Vegas-based sportsbook which run sports betting operations in numerous U.S. states, including Virginia.

First there was a call to the local CBS television affiliate in Washington D.C., WUSA Channel 9, which jumped on the story and aired an interview by reporter Matthew Torres with Benton about the fiasco.

Then there was a call-in the next morning to the popular Washington, D.C. radio show “Elliot in the Morning” with Elliot Segal on WWDC, which resulted in a 20-minute interview and discussion about the controversy.

Then came interviews with a couple of websites, including Gambling 911.

Slowly but surely, the stiffing saga started going viral.

The WUSA interview and the Elliott segment were posted online.

A sports betting social media star name Trent Attya, who has almost 200,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted about the fury and made a TikTok video about it, which was widely viewed.

Soon dozens of websites were featuring stories about the case.

Gambling 911 coverage got its highest readership ever, as the website broke the story that Benton was hiring a lawyer to go after BetMGM.

Even the syndicated television show “Inside Edition” was considering doing a piece.

BetMGM, and by extension, its parent company, MGM, was taking a beating in the press.

The court of public opinion was firmly in Benton‘s corner, echoing the gambler’s adage, “If you take the bet, you pay the bet.”

Finally, on Friday, August 18, BetMGM blinked.

One of the sportsbook’s attorneys called Benton and told him they had reversed their decision and would be paying him his winnings in full.

The attorney, however, gave no reason for the sudden reversal of fortune.

The following Monday, August 21, was the first day of school at Benton’s high school, and it was a raucus first day for the 35-year-old teacher-coach.

Gambling 911 caught up with Benton shortly after the first day of school ended and sat down with him for an in-depth interview about his whirlwind month of August.

Here is a transcript of that interview:

Gambling 911: Congratulations on finally getting your money. Can you tell us how you found out the big news?

Kris Benton: I was driving around doing errands with my daughter on Friday afternoon when I realized I had a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize. So I listened to it and it was a guy saying, “I’m a lawyer from BetMGM.” He wanted me to give him a call, or if I had already signed with a lawyer, to have my lawyer give him a call. Since I hadn’t signed anything official with a lawyer yet, I called back. I was a little bit worried whether it was legitimate or not, but it was very legitimate and he was very nice. He started by saying, “I’m sorry again for the inconvenience.” He reiterated that there was an obvious error with the odds and then he said, “With all that said, we’re going to pay out your bet In full. The full $214,500 should be in your account in just a couple of hours. At that point you can go ahead and start to withdraw it.”

G9: Did you ever actually hire a lawyer, or didn’t it get that far?

KB: A lawyer reached out to me after hearing me on the radio and I called him. He never actually got back to me with a day and time that we could meet. I called him again Friday morning and he was in court that day so there was nothing official. I hadn’t officially hired anyone, so that’s where that was.

G9: So you don’t have to give a cut to a lawyer, which would’ve been as much as a third, right?

KB: Yeah, I actually laughed about that.

G9: Who called you from BetMGM?

KB: His name was Joshua Jessen.

G9: When you spoke to him did you get any sense of why they reversed their decision and decided to pay you? Do you think it was because of all the bad publicity they were getting? Or were they afraid you were getting a lawyer? Or do you think the Virginia Lottery, the governmental agency that regulates all gambling in the state, made them do it under threat of revoking their gambling license?

KB: Honestly, I do not know, but I would love to know that answer. I talked to my wife after I had the conversation with the lawyer and I said I wonder what the exact tipping point was for them.

G9: Do you regret that you didn’t bet more, now that you’ve collected?

KB: I’m just relieved that this is finally being resolved in my favor. I am very thankful for that.

G9: You are going to have to pay taxes on your winnings. Had you won the money offshore, nobody would know. But BetMGM will report this to the IRS. Do you have any idea how much you will have to pay in taxes?

KB: Yes. We have a family member who we reached out to this week to get a general idea of what the tax situation would look like. He figured we will have to pay 24% for federal taxes and 5.75% for state taxes, so we could be looking at something close to 30% (about $65,000).

G9: Are you going to keep betting with BetMGM or are you going to go somewhere else?

KB: I’m planning to go somewhere else.

G9: Are you going to quit your job?

KB: No. I love teaching.

G9: So school has just started?

KB: Today was the first day.

G9: What was the reception like at school? Was it a big deal? Did anyone say anything to you about all this?

KB: A lot of my co-workers came up to me and said congratulations. One student had seen the news about it and came up to me and said something, but I didn’t spend too much time talking to the student about it. My supervisor, who is one of the assistant principals, reached out and said congratulations and so did my principal when I saw him in the parking lot.

G9: At the time you made the bet, did you know what the odds were, and did you think that there was anything unusual about them being so high for a two-leg parlay?

KB: I saw what the odds were before I placed the bets. I didn’t think too much of it at the time other than I liked the chances of the bets and I obviously liked the odds. I wouldn’t bet on it if I didn’t like the odds. I didn’t give it too much thought at the time or think that there was anything obviously wrong with it.

G9: Is there anything else you want to add to your story?

KB: I just thought it was funny that when I talked to the BetMGM lawyer, the last thing he said was, “I hope you continue to bet with us.”

By Tom Somach

Gambling 911 Chief Correspondent

tsomach@aol.com