One of sport’s greatest traditions of the past decade is back — the Drake curse.
The hip hop and rap megastar, who has been on both the good and bad sides of some substantial wagers over the years, placed a $500,000 bet overnight Wednesday on the Dallas Mavericks to defeat the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.
“Dallas cause I’m a Texan,” he wrote in an Instagram post.
For those who need a quick catch-up on the Canadian-by-birth Grammy Award winner: Drake purchased a 313-acre ranch in Brenham, a small town about three and a half hours south from Dallas in Washington County, last year for a cool $15 million. He had been looking to buy a Texas property for some time before the acquisition.
Drake’s estimated payout for a Mavericks victory would be worth just under $1.4 million.
Like Drake, the general public is on the Mavericks’ side as well ahead of Game 1 on Thursday night. According to ESPN, approximately 80% of the bets placed this week at U.S. sportsbooks have been on the underdog Mavericks to win the series.
“The bigger bets and the sharper bets are on the Celtics, but there’s just more bets on the Mavericks,” David Lieberman, a sports trader, who oversees NBA odds for Caesars Sportsbook, told ESPN.
Among other notable basketball names predicting the Finals, the NBA on TNT crew couldn’t come to a consensus on a winner, with Shaquille O’Neal picking the Mavericks against Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith picking the Celtics.
An ESPN survey of 17 staff members found nine votes for the Mavericks and eight for the Celtics to take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
On his own YouTube channel, Stephen A. Smith picked Dallas to pull the upset in six games in front of its home crowd.
“The greatness of Luka Doncic is something I think we got to be prepared to behold,” Smith said.
The Dallas Morning News’ Tim Cowlishaw has the Mavericks in five.
“Boston has been just as good as Dallas (maybe better) at closing out games, but I’ll still take Doncic with the ball in his hands for the final shot over Tatum, Brown and the rest. Sometimes teams just get on a roll, and Dallas is on one,” he said in the DMN vs. Boston Globe predictions this week.
For transparency, Drake bet more than $1 million in February on the Kansas City Chiefs to defeat the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl, and that worked out pretty well for “Champagne Papi.”
Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
