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Dominic Mirabella (Facebook photo)
Update, 5:30 p.m. Monday: Despite skeptics on the Internet who suspect a hoax or a publicity stunt, a co-founder of the app, FourPlay Football, insisted Monday that Dominic Mirabella of Royal Oak on Sunday really won $1 million after picking the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl.
Mirabella, 39, married and father of two young children, won the money using FourPlay Football, a Birmingham company, that was created in 2015. The victory required successful bets against “the spread” in four games a week, all 17 weeks of the regular season, as well as games throughout the playoffs, 81 in all, writes James David Dickson of The Detroit News.
Jeff Johnson, a co-founder of the app, tells Deadline Detroit that he's aware of the tweets and other comments saying it's impossible to win the money considering the odds. But he said they were exaggerating the odds of winning. He said Mirabella had a 5 million-to-1 chance of winning -- not greater, as some critics suggest.
The app gives users an extra 14-point spread on every game, he explained in a phone interview Monday afternoon. In other words, if Green Bay was favored by 7 over the Lions, anyone betting on the Lions would get a 21-point spread. If they bet on Green Bay, they would get a 7 point spread.
The Super Bowl was the only game where users could only play with the real spread, not with a extra 14 points.
"We're reading peoples' comments, but they're not reading the game rules," the FourPlay executive said, referring to the spread.
Under the posted rules, the Birmingham company can pay the prize over 10 years. Mirabella will get $100,000 a year, Johnson says.
The app has 3,000 to 4,000 users, he adds, and about 85 percent are out-of-state. Users can play for free or pay for premium features that help them with their picks or enter the contest for the week after the deadline.
Mirabella tells Deadline it's all on the up-and-up and that he didn't know the people at FourPlay Football before last week.
He said he watched the game in his basement with his wife and friends, and for awhile it was like funeral when New England was losing.
By the end, when New England won, he said there was "chaos" at his house, the good kind.
Background from Monday morning article:
The New England Patriots were the big winners on Sunday. So is Dominic Mirabella of Royal Oak, who won $1 million.
Actually, it isn't just picking of the Patriots that brings his windfall.
Mirabella, 39, married and father of two children, won the money using an app called FourPlay Football, a Birmingham company. The grand victory required successful bets against “the spread” in four games a week, all 17 weeks of the regular season, as well as games throughout the playoffs, 81 in all, writes James David Dickson of The Detroit News.
Mirabella is a frustrated Detroit Lions fan who adopted the Patriots, led by quarterback Tom Brady, as a favorite team. He's a financial planner who went to work as usual Monday.
