‘Breaking Bad’ Pays Out: Bet Online Talks Action With Esquire

Bet Online reported some decent business related to its “Breaking Bad” finale betting odds, re-issued last week.  This is a spoiler alert so you may not wish to continue reading below.

Lead character Walter White, Sr. died in the finale and the odds offered were actually somewhat respectable.  At -260, the payout would have been $10 for every $26 bet with the $26 initial wager returned on top of that $10 profit.  For savvy more patient gamblers, that number was later brought down to -200.

“Breaking Bad” was an enormously popular cable television series produced by Vince Gilligan

The series, which aired on AMC, centered around a struggling high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and takes to a life of crime in his native Albuquerque through the manufacturing of methamphetamine.  His primary goal was to secure his family’s financial wellbeing before dying. 

“The response to our odds offering has been remarkable,” noted Dave Mason of BetOnline at the time they began offering bets on the cable program.

Gambling911.com helped secure an interview with Mason last week for Esquire Magazine and Esquire Online leading up to the big finale.

“At the end of the day, if bettors want to bet on something, we’ll take their bets,” Mason told the popular men’s magazine.  “This is nowhere near the NFL in terms of action, but it gets action.”

Mason’s online sportsbook has offered similar wagering opportunities in the past on the “Sopranos” season finale as to whether lead character Tony Soprano would die.

Esquire columnist Michael Kaplan pointed out that the end result there was “totally ambiguous”.

Mason responded:  “We wound up doing no action on Tony Soprano dying. We refunded all the money.”

He added that, with the Walter White, Jr. bet prop, a similar disclaimer had been added regarding any uncertainty of his death.

- Jordan Bach, Gambling911.com