Crazy Iowa Sports Bets With Worse Odds Than Mega Millions

Do you smell that? :: SNIFF SNIFF:: it's lottery fever! As of this writing, the jackpot is at a whopping 1.1 billion dollars. Yes, that means the winner could become one of only 724 billionaires in the United States.

That said, your odds... really stink. Actually, they're flat-out awful. Really, they are. You have a 1 in 302,575,350 chance of winning the jackpot of the Mega Millions lottery, which requires matching all six numbers.

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With that in mind, and knowing sports betting is fully legal in our state, I dug up some incredible bets that will only set you back $1, which is actually one buck LESS than the cost of a Mega Millions ticket. The crazy thing is these bets actually have WORSE odds than winning the billion-dollar Mega Millions prize.

Crazy Iowa sports bets worth big $$$

So quickly before we start, whether you're a gambling pro or novice, it's important to remember that betting one buck in a straight bet (like on a team or specific player) is unlikely to score you thousands upon thousands of dollars.

In order to increase your odds to win big on a buck, you have to place a parlay bet. Simply put, a parlay is a bet where several conditions must be met in order for the gambler to win. However, if the conditions are met, Mr. or Mrs. Gambler can score big, big bucks.

Now that we've got that straight, I used using Bookies.com and Bet MGM (which is legal in Iowa), to assist with the numbers. Here are a couple of wild eight-legged parlay bets, and what they'd be worth on a $1 wager. We'll start with baseball since the season is still going.

Oh, and since we're in Iowa, I'll use two midwestern teams, the White Sox and the Brewers, to kick us off.

Okay so admittedly you'd be better off forking over the extra dollar and getting a Mega Millions ticket. Plus, the White Sox are looking... rough this year. Your odds match the payout so if you did bet and win this parlay, you'd score a $313,150,923.80 payday. Not bad. Also, not gonna happen. Sorry.

For our next wild eight-legged parlay bet we'll shift to NFL football for this doozy.

Will Rusell Wilson take his new team to the promise and? Will the Jets make the playoffs? Will the Bills go undefeated? Will you win over $311 million? No... but it's fun to pretend! And for only a dollar, you can impress your friends with your crazy wager.

Whatever do with this upcoming Mega Millions jackpot if you actually won it, I guess the old adage does remain accurate, you can't win if you don't play. But, you also can't lose.