(Image credit: @BenjaminLyons)
Jona Rechnitz, 29, almost miraculously won $50,000 on a long-shot Super Bowl bet and he is donating his winnings to charity.
Rechnitz of New York City bet $1,000 that the Giants would score the first points with a safety, at 50 to 1 odds. This was reportedly the first safety since Super Bowl XXV in 1991.
A group of Rechnitz's friends make an annual trip to Las Vegas to bet on the Super Bowl and invited him this year for the first time.
It was a good thing he decided to tag along this year because that bet won him $50,000. He also bet $500 on the Giants.
This was the first time Rechnitz, who works in real estate, had made a sports bet of any kind.
"I made one dumb bet-and I made out," he told ABC News.
The winnings, however, are going to charity, said Rechnitz. Some of the money will go to a charity of choice of Tom Brady "for good sportsmanship" and the rest will go to charities endorsed by three of the Giants' defensive lineman.
Has this encouraged him to make other bets? No.
"When you beat the odds in Las Vegas, you leave Las Vegas," he said. "This is a fluke. It's not what I do."
In other words, he thinks he'll get out while he's ahead.
The tradition of his group of friends is that the biggest winner buys sneakers for everybody else. So he bought $700 worth of sneakers for his friends.
"I was very happy to," Rechnitz said.
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