Grammy Award-winning rapper Drake, without question, is one of the best performers of all time. However, the fickle nature of his sports fandom makes him an easy target for some fans, especially when the teams he roots for tend to underperform. This becomes even more prominent when Drake puts his money where his mouth is. And during UFC 285, it seemed like the returning Jon Jones would be the next casualty of the notorious Drake curse.
A day before Jones' highly-anticipated bout against Cyril Gane, Drake posted on his Instagram account that he bet $250,000 on the outcome that the returning heavyweight wins by submission. The Canadian rapper did so on +580 odds (29/5), which meant that he would net a profit of $1.45 million ($1.7 million total) if he hit. And hit on that bet, he did.
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Jon Jones had not fought in three years before his contest against Cyril Gane on Saturday night, so there were no guarantees that Jones would even win, let alone win by submission. Jones also went up to a higher weight division, which makes betting on a convincing win, like Drake did, such a risky proposition.
Alas, Jones showed no rust in his first showing in the Octagon since February 8, 2020. Jones showed that he was still as technically sound as ever, taking down Gane early on in their match and submitting him via a guillotine choke shortly thereafter, ending the bout after just two minutes and four seconds.
While Drake will be happily raking in the dough, he won't be taking home as much of a payout as he could have. Drake decided to hedge his bets, as he also put $250,000 on Jon Jones winning by knockout. Nonetheless, a profit of $1.1 million is an amount billions of people around the world can only dream of having, let alone in one fell swoop.
This is not the first time that a team managed to overcome the Drake curse. Last month, Drake bet $700,000 on the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles, which they did, thanks to Patrick Mahomes' outstanding performance.