Karma helps Streak for the Cash winner
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
When Michael Swanson woke up Tuesday morning this is what he was facing: His one-month-old son, Adam, had spent the night in the hospital with a fever. His girlfriend still was recovering from gallbladder surgery. And he had to get to his job in the maintenance department at the University of Virginia, where he has worked since the furniture company he had spent 17 years making parts for disappeared.
It was also April 30 and, if he was smart, he'd be $200,000 richer by morning. "I said to myself, I am never going to be in this situation again. I have to go get it."
The 43-year-old Swanson is not a sports bettor. But he's a big fan of Streak for the Cash on ESPN.com. He plays it nearly every day, usually a few times a day, clicking through the options, generally scanning the baseball props, trying to find advantages in starting pitching that he thinks others might not see. Historically, he has not been very good at it. Through April 15, in fact, he had made 41 picks for the month and had gone 15-26.
Meanwhile, one player had made 24 correct picks over eight days before he lost. And 33 other people had 15-pick streaks as of April 16. At stake was not just the $50,000 monthly prize for whomever has the best winning streak over the course of the month, but a $150,000 bonus for anyone who reached a threshold of at least 27 straight wins in the month. (Each month there is a $50,000, 27-win bonus that rolls over if no one wins. This year, someone won it in January. The biggest bonus payouts in Streak history have been $450,000 in August of 2011 and $300,000 twice in 2012).
If you want to know how the Streakmasters decided on 27 straight wins as the barometer, just imagine a bunch of analytics lovers (née geeks) sitting in the basement of a building on ESPN's campus trying to determine how long most streaks go, and then adding two or three more picks to make it that much harder.
That morning, April 16, Swanson surveyed his options and decided the game he liked was the New York Yankees over the Arizona Diamondbacks. "The Yankees are my favorite team," he said. And they rewarded him, winning 4-2.
Later that night came his first brush with karma, when his pick, the San Jose Sharks, beat the Kings 3-2 in a shootout. "That was my only hockey pick," he said. The next day came another sweat, when he had West Ham to win, draw or lose by one to Manchester United, and West Ham pulled a 2-2 draw. And so it went: The Memphis Grizzlies to hit more 3s than the Utah Jazz on April 17. The Milwaukee Brewers over the San Francisco Giants on April 18. The streak extended from one day to two, from three days to four and then to a week. He thought he might lose it on Day 9, when he had the New York Mets over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets were down one in the ninth, before tying it. And then winning it in the 10th on a grand slam.
Swanson made multiple picks most days, piling up wins, little things going his way, a lifetime's worth of luck settling over his head and just sitting there, a shield against bad beats. He woke up on April 30, having won 24 games in a row from a mix of hockey, baseball, soccer and the NBA. Meanwhile, one other player had slowly and steadily been building a streak since the beginning of the month, carefully choosing his games with Stephen Curry-like precision. As April 30 dawned, he was one game ahead of the other player with only one day left in the month to win the $200,000.
"My son had been in the hospital overnight. We weren't worried, that is what doctors do when newborns run a fever," he told me on Thursday afternoon. "I went to work in the morning and then got a call from the hospital he was ready to be taken home. Right before I left work I decided to make a pick: FK Ural, the Russian soccer club, to beat UFA on the road. When I do soccer I pay attention to goal differentials and Ural are one of the best teams in that league. So I took a shot they would win on the road. When I got home from the hospital I checked the app on my phone and saw the score."
Ural won 2-0. The streak was at 25.
"Then I went with soccer again," he said. "This time Real Madrid, which I could watch on Fox Soccer. That game was tough, tied at zero through most of it. Then Real Madrid scored two goals in the final eight minutes."
The streak was at 26.
But his wasn't the only one. Earlier in the day, his opponent had matched him pick-for-pick, upping his record to 25-0. As Swanson eyed the final options on the board he realized he needed a strategy: He had to make a pick that, if his opponent made the same one, he had time to make one more before the clock turned to midnight and the calendar turned from April to May, setting his streak back to zero. The only option was to pick Ty Lawson to score more points in the first half of Game 5 than Klay Thompson. Swanson picked Lawson. And after the game had started and the picks were locked, he checked the Streak leaderboard. His opponent had picked Thompson.
"I hadn't watched many of the games I picked on TV," Swanson said. "But I was going to watch this one. And when it started, knowing it was going to end one way or the other, I really felt at ease. I don't know why, I just had a good feeling."
It started as if that blanket of karma that had been warming Swanson all month was beginning to shred. Thompson scored with just more than nine minutes left in the first quarter. Then again with just more than four and a half minutes left. But on the next trip down, Lawson answered, cutting the lead to 4-2 Thompson. Less than a minute later, Lawson took the lead with a 3, beginning a streak during which he scored seven straight for Denver in the first quarter, four of them on free throws.
Thompson, meanwhile, disappeared. He didn't get back on the board until midway through the second, draining a 3 to make it 9-7 Lawson with a little more than six minutes to go in the half. Two minutes later, Lawson drove the lane, putting him up by four. At 3:40 Thompson turned the ball over. At 2:50, he did it again. And at 1:50, Thompson missed a 3 that would have cut it to one point. Forty seconds later, he maneuvered for a nifty reverse, putting Lawson ahead 11-9 and making Swanson sweat for that final minute to win $200,000.
And then, just like that, the horn sounded. The half was over. Swanson had won $200,000 because Lawson had two more points than Thompson in the first 24 minutes of Game 5. And Swanson says he never gambles.
"I was just was so happy," he said. "It's like living in a dream. The money came at a perfect time, I mean any time is a good time. But right now is wonderful."
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
When Michael Swanson woke up Tuesday morning this is what he was facing: His one-month-old son, Adam, had spent the night in the hospital with a fever. His girlfriend still was recovering from gallbladder surgery. And he had to get to his job in the maintenance department at the University of Virginia, where he has worked since the furniture company he had spent 17 years making parts for disappeared.
It was also April 30 and, if he was smart, he'd be $200,000 richer by morning. "I said to myself, I am never going to be in this situation again. I have to go get it."
The 43-year-old Swanson is not a sports bettor. But he's a big fan of Streak for the Cash on ESPN.com. He plays it nearly every day, usually a few times a day, clicking through the options, generally scanning the baseball props, trying to find advantages in starting pitching that he thinks others might not see. Historically, he has not been very good at it. Through April 15, in fact, he had made 41 picks for the month and had gone 15-26.
Meanwhile, one player had made 24 correct picks over eight days before he lost. And 33 other people had 15-pick streaks as of April 16. At stake was not just the $50,000 monthly prize for whomever has the best winning streak over the course of the month, but a $150,000 bonus for anyone who reached a threshold of at least 27 straight wins in the month. (Each month there is a $50,000, 27-win bonus that rolls over if no one wins. This year, someone won it in January. The biggest bonus payouts in Streak history have been $450,000 in August of 2011 and $300,000 twice in 2012).
If you want to know how the Streakmasters decided on 27 straight wins as the barometer, just imagine a bunch of analytics lovers (née geeks) sitting in the basement of a building on ESPN's campus trying to determine how long most streaks go, and then adding two or three more picks to make it that much harder.
That morning, April 16, Swanson surveyed his options and decided the game he liked was the New York Yankees over the Arizona Diamondbacks. "The Yankees are my favorite team," he said. And they rewarded him, winning 4-2.
Later that night came his first brush with karma, when his pick, the San Jose Sharks, beat the Kings 3-2 in a shootout. "That was my only hockey pick," he said. The next day came another sweat, when he had West Ham to win, draw or lose by one to Manchester United, and West Ham pulled a 2-2 draw. And so it went: The Memphis Grizzlies to hit more 3s than the Utah Jazz on April 17. The Milwaukee Brewers over the San Francisco Giants on April 18. The streak extended from one day to two, from three days to four and then to a week. He thought he might lose it on Day 9, when he had the New York Mets over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets were down one in the ninth, before tying it. And then winning it in the 10th on a grand slam.
Swanson made multiple picks most days, piling up wins, little things going his way, a lifetime's worth of luck settling over his head and just sitting there, a shield against bad beats. He woke up on April 30, having won 24 games in a row from a mix of hockey, baseball, soccer and the NBA. Meanwhile, one other player had slowly and steadily been building a streak since the beginning of the month, carefully choosing his games with Stephen Curry-like precision. As April 30 dawned, he was one game ahead of the other player with only one day left in the month to win the $200,000.
"My son had been in the hospital overnight. We weren't worried, that is what doctors do when newborns run a fever," he told me on Thursday afternoon. "I went to work in the morning and then got a call from the hospital he was ready to be taken home. Right before I left work I decided to make a pick: FK Ural, the Russian soccer club, to beat UFA on the road. When I do soccer I pay attention to goal differentials and Ural are one of the best teams in that league. So I took a shot they would win on the road. When I got home from the hospital I checked the app on my phone and saw the score."
Ural won 2-0. The streak was at 25.
"Then I went with soccer again," he said. "This time Real Madrid, which I could watch on Fox Soccer. That game was tough, tied at zero through most of it. Then Real Madrid scored two goals in the final eight minutes."
The streak was at 26.
But his wasn't the only one. Earlier in the day, his opponent had matched him pick-for-pick, upping his record to 25-0. As Swanson eyed the final options on the board he realized he needed a strategy: He had to make a pick that, if his opponent made the same one, he had time to make one more before the clock turned to midnight and the calendar turned from April to May, setting his streak back to zero. The only option was to pick Ty Lawson to score more points in the first half of Game 5 than Klay Thompson. Swanson picked Lawson. And after the game had started and the picks were locked, he checked the Streak leaderboard. His opponent had picked Thompson.
"I hadn't watched many of the games I picked on TV," Swanson said. "But I was going to watch this one. And when it started, knowing it was going to end one way or the other, I really felt at ease. I don't know why, I just had a good feeling."
It started as if that blanket of karma that had been warming Swanson all month was beginning to shred. Thompson scored with just more than nine minutes left in the first quarter. Then again with just more than four and a half minutes left. But on the next trip down, Lawson answered, cutting the lead to 4-2 Thompson. Less than a minute later, Lawson took the lead with a 3, beginning a streak during which he scored seven straight for Denver in the first quarter, four of them on free throws.
Thompson, meanwhile, disappeared. He didn't get back on the board until midway through the second, draining a 3 to make it 9-7 Lawson with a little more than six minutes to go in the half. Two minutes later, Lawson drove the lane, putting him up by four. At 3:40 Thompson turned the ball over. At 2:50, he did it again. And at 1:50, Thompson missed a 3 that would have cut it to one point. Forty seconds later, he maneuvered for a nifty reverse, putting Lawson ahead 11-9 and making Swanson sweat for that final minute to win $200,000.
And then, just like that, the horn sounded. The half was over. Swanson had won $200,000 because Lawson had two more points than Thompson in the first 24 minutes of Game 5. And Swanson says he never gambles.
"I was just was so happy," he said. "It's like living in a dream. The money came at a perfect time, I mean any time is a good time. But right now is wonderful."
