Rovell: The man who earned $ 1.19 million by betting on Tiger said he had $ 25,000 in debt and that he had never placed a sports bet

James Adducci came out of nowhere in March.

Tiger Woods would win the Masters.

What follows is as scandalous as the return of Tiger Woods. No, it's even more crazy. It does not even seem possible.

You see, William Hill pays $ 1.19 million on Monday, a record number for the US bookmaker's division with just one golf bet.

And that's what he paid to Adducci, 39, who said it was his first sports bet. He added that the only other bet that he had placed in his life was with the now-defunct Tradesports site that Arnold Schwarzenegger would win the California Governor's recall election in 2003. Yes, Adducci said that he had also won this bet.

Three major sports bets from Las Vegas independently confirmed that they had no record of Adducci having previously placed a sports bet in their properties.

Adducci said he did not know how to place a bet and he certainly did not have $ 85,000. Yet Tuesday morning, after taking the plane to Vegas, a Wisconsin native went to the bookmaker counter of the SLS Vegas casino and asked him if he could place a bet of $ 85,000 on Woods to win the Masters. (William Hill runs the sportsbook site at SLS, one of more than 100 of these sites for the Nevada company.)

It was the third sportsbook book that Adducci said to have visited that day. One athlete stated that the maximum they had left to bet was $ 4,000. Another, Westgate, has set the maximum at $ 10,000. He forwarded the two offers hoping to put the lump sum to a book.

While Adducci was waiting, Nick Bogdanovich, director of transactions for William Hill US, received a call. Could they take this bet from $ 85,000 to 14-1? He was above Bogdanovich's salary, he said. So he called William Hill's American CEO, Joe Asher. The answer? Yes.

Adducci said that he would come back. He says that he went to a local Walmart and bought a backpack. He then said that he had gone to a local bank to recover the money he had requested.

James Adducci said he handled the $ 85,000 in cash and put them in his backpack.

He then brought an Uber back to the SLS. Not thinking, he said to have hit POOL on the application. Then, with $ 85,000 in his backpack, he shared a walk with a mother and a daughter who, he says, were wondering aloud how to pay for the life to come.

"I felt sick, knowing that I had in my backpack $ 85,000 and that they were talking like that," Adducci said. "If I see them again, I'll help them."

It was a strange feeling. He stated that on Christmas day 2018 he had a debt of $ 25,000, claiming that his protein supplement business had gone bankrupt after a supplier failed to discharge his responsibilities.

Utilizing the little he had left of Amazon company and shares sold, he had the money to make his bet.