It may be the one of the first $1,000 bets ever placed on a 1,000-1 underdog. 'They're 1,000-1.'ĭoran nods, and Kizenko enters the bet on his sportsbook app: $1,000 on Utah State to win the national championship at 1,000-1 odds with Caesars Sportsbook.

'F- it! Let's hammer the national championship,' he blurts out. Kizenko looks over Utah State's schedule, notes a big game in Week 2 and checks the odds on his phone, before letting out an expletive. 'I think we should bet Utah State,' Doran says, suggesting they take the Aggies to win more than seven games during the regular season. It has become a popular spot to watch games and talk gambling.ĭoran explains to Kizenko that former Michigan athletes were at the wedding he attended the previous night and were really hyping up a team from the Mountain West as a sleeper for the next college football season. In 2012, he left his Moscow-based trading gig with Goldman Sachs to bring the Russian tradition of banyas to New Jersey and opened Bear and Birch. Pete Kizenko, the banya's 56-year-old owner, is intrigued. 'Pete, listen, I have a bet for you,' says Robert Doran, who is at the spa trying to sweat out the tequila shots he took the night before at a wedding. The story behind the wildest college football bet of the offseason begins on a Sunday night in April in Freehold, New Jersey, where two gambling buddies - a local restaurant owner with a hangover and a former Goldman Sachs trader - are chatting after hours at a Russian-style bathhouse.

You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĪ hangover, a New Jersey spa and an ex-Goldman Sachs trader: The story behind the wildest college football bet of the offseason

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