The betting slips are being guarded by an old, tattered Houston Astros backpack instead of a bank vault or Brink's truck. On a recent Tuesday afternoon in Houston, with the MLB playoffs about to start, the faded blue nylon bag, its contents worth potentially millions, sits on the floor of the massive Gallery Furniture showroom, just within arm's reach of its owner: the Houston furniture magnate and Astros superfan Jim
McIngvale has been a household name in Houston due to his wacky TV commercials and his Ross Perot delivery. Mc Ingvale has a high tolerance for risk. "Damon Runyon said that all horse players are doomed." It's hard not to and it's a lot more fun. In response to Hurricane Harvey, McIngvale opened his doors and housed hundreds of people for weeks in his furniture showroom, something he had done before. After the storm, McIngvale was in the news again, this time for an only-in-Texas furniture promotion through which anyone who bought a mattress from Gallery Furniture would get it for free if the Astros won it
McIngvale hedged his losses by placing seven-figure bets on the Astros. It's good. He had to give back more than 10 million mattresses. "We take large wagers from sports bettors of all stripes, but I'm not sure anyone does it with as much gusto as Mack," says Ken Fuchs, head of sports at Caesar's Entertainment. Bill Veeck is the only comparison with Mack. He is always willing to take a risk and has fun doing it.
The Astros brought McIngvale along for the trip to the White House because he was one of their own. The Astros' senior vice president of marketing and communications said that Mack became an example of everything the Astros and Houston had been through in that year. Houstonians have watched him build his life in Houston and give back to the community. They have a special affection for him. Mack doesn't care about words or action.
More than one.
Now, five years later, with the Astros poised to face the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, McIngvale's original furniture promotion has tripled in size to what is about to be a record-breaking $75 million World. McIngvale says he will have $10 million riding on the Astros by the start of the Fall Classic. The exact kind of nerve-frying, death-defying stakes Mattress Mack has been drawing all his life.
We spent time with McIngvale for a look behind the scenes at the remarkable life and times of Mattress Mack and the moments during the past forty years that led him to take such a big swing on his hometown team.
Even as he faces the culmination of all his business success, sports-gambling excess and Astros madness, he shrugs and says he likes all of these big bets. I enjoy chaos.
McIngvale is going to have the time of his life if that is true.
McIngvale is behind the front desk at the Gallery Furniture showroom on the north side of Houston and he hopes to stay there until he dies. McIngvale, who is worth an estimated $300 million, checks on the delivery status of a bedroom set while visitors wander through the property.
There is a big warehouse filled with mattresses in anticipation of the Astros title. The daycare is funded by McIngvale. A trade school to the north. The location has been said to be a community center since the hurricanes. George H.W. Bush's custom-made Texas A&M presidential motor scooter can be seen in a panoramic view near the entrance.
Jim was a prep football player at Bishop Lynch in Dallas, a school his father helped found. Jim claims his junior high coach was among the officers who arrested Oswald. George McIngvale put his former high school teammate in his car and drove him back to college even though he couldn't afford it. Even though he didn't have a lot of money, my father was still a generous person. "That taking care of people, that may not be a lot of thinking, but more just 'Ready-fire-aim' approach to life?" It comes from that place.
Even though he was a member of the legendary 1969 and 1970 Texas Longhorns football teams that won 30 straight games and back-to-back national titles, the experience is still important to him. McIngvale had two small problems while he was a football player. I was too small and not fast. Frank Medina, the Longhorns' trainer from 1945 to 1978, was one of the major influences in McIngvale's life. McIngvale says that he was a fireball. He would scream 'What are you saving it for?' in your face. Is there anything else you have? He told me to ask, take and give. Don't give up and don't ask for anything. It's up to you.
McIngvale was broke and living in Dallas when he started selling furniture. He went to "Muhammad Ali Appreciation Day" in Dallas in 1978 in order to sell gym memberships. In the middle of his career, Ali would spar with locals and sign autographs for fans. Ali, always the showman, asked the crowd if they wanted to fight after he dispatched a few local hopefuls.
One hand was raised.
The person said it was McIngvale's.
Ali told Great White Hope to come on up here.
Inside the ring, as a trainer prepared McIngvale's gloves, Ali leaned in and said the plan for the spectacle. Ali dropped his guard and McIngvale stood over him, taunting the fallen champ. When the crowd turned on McIngvale, Ali miraculously sprang back to life, grabbed the mic and confessed to orchestrating the entire stunt.
It shouldn't take too much time.
The people in the crowd were asking my friends if they were with him. They were not with him.
Linda was with Mc Ingvale at the event. Mack loved the side of Ali that was shown in that film. Mack loved thatAli was also the greatest promoter of all time.
McIngvale says he stumbles into these things. I have a high tolerance for risk. It can sometimes work. Sometimes, it does.
When you lose a million dollar bet, you just ask what's next. You can't do anything else. We sold a lot of memberships that day.
The Texas oil bust forced Houstonians to tighten their belts and threatened to bankrupt Mc Ingvale. Half of McIngvale's final $10,000 was spent on inventory and the other half on a TV commercial shoot. He didn't have anything on tape when he was in front of the camera. McIngvale says that he was down to his final take. I waved the day's receipts around and saidGallery Furniture will save you. It's Monday! The producer said "That's it, that's the commercial" And it kept on sticking. In Texas, the over-the-top spots started airing late at night on Channel 39.
There was a baby.
It's a character who immediately draws comparisons to legendary MLB owner and promoter Bill Veeck who gave us Disco Demolition Night. Someone with a colorful personality is someone who bets big. Mack is able to act on ideas even though he thinks about them a lot.
Since the 1980s, McIngvale's catch phrase has been playing on Houston's radio stations. He has screamed it while wearing a mattress, was almost trampled by livestock, and posed next to every B-level celebrity in Texas. The community has become aware of Mattress Mack. McIngvale says he walked past a child with special needs who was shopping for furniture with his parents. His mother was overcome with emotion.
McIngvale wants to be a big promoter like W.C. Fields. I'm getting to live it out, and that's what I have always wanted to be.
He says he started playing sports gambling in 2006 when he won $250,000 on Vince Young and the Longhorns. The two die-hard Manning fans helped him develop the idea of hedging his furniture promotions with sports bets. Kind of. McIngvale was convinced by two of his employees that there was no way that the Broncos would lose to the Seahawks in the Superbowl. Everyone will get their furniture for free if the Seahawks beat Manning. He says that it got away from him in the last few days.
Gallery Furniture had sold every mattress, sofa, ottoman, and lamp by Saturday. McIngvale says the greatest promotion they've ever had. At 7 pm on Saturday, I stood on top of the desk at the front of the store screaming at the people that they had to go home. That's it. Is that correct? It's unbelievable. We sold everything we had. In our history, never has it happened.
He was on to something. He was happy. Just before the start of the game, he did the math.
He says that if Seattle won, they were on the hook for a lot.
McIngvale ran on the treadmill at the back of his warehouse for three hours because he was too nervous to watch the game. He doesn't have a television. McIngvale knew he was in trouble when he couldn't find the two Manning fans. He couldn't do anything because he was waiting for the post game call. I picked up the phone after the game and asked my wife how much money we lost. I spat it out. McIngvale says we're out nine million. The story has been run through the Filter in the past. He lost $7 million, according to an article from the year before. She was not a happy camper. I realized that I needed to hedge this stuff.
McIngvale gave out keys to the company's fleet of delivery trucks to anyone willing to help rescue people from Harvey. Lebedzinski almost drowned when he was sucked into the filthy floodwater by an open manhole cover. Before he saved himself, he was halfway to the bay. Hundreds of families lived inside McIngvale's showroom after Lebedzinski's daring rescues ended. Mack's may be the biggest Houstonian.
People wanted to know how to allow them to sleep on the new furniture. McIngvale said it. I don't know what I'll do, let them all drown. It was all done. I didn't think it was anything. It was the right decision to make. I wanted my children to watch me do that. We are all going to be judged by our creator at the end of the day, and he won't ask us how much money we made. He or she will ask how much of a difference you made.
In the early days of the city's recovery, McIngvale's open-arm policy set the tone and created a path forward. The way people came together to help each other was the best of Houston.
Khanh Doan was one of the temporary residents who was sheltered at Gallery Furniture after being pulled out of the floods. Doan finally got to thank McIngvale in person.
Is it because he saved his life?
He doesn't say no.
My mother's and my father's lives were saved.
During the past decade, McIngvale has helped raise $12 million for tsunami relief, delivered 25,000 care packages to seniors, and opened his showroom during last year's winter storm. When the team from Pearland, Texas, made it to the Little League World Series, McIngvale and the Astros raised money for the players' families.
Sehgal says thatMack is the first to step up for anything affecting Houston. "Larger or smaller."
If you really want to see McIngvale's Mattress Mack alter ego, don't ask about football, Elvis or his weakness for horses. Ask about his life's work. McIngvale has achieved a kind of gambler's nirvana by finding a way to bet millions upon millions on his beloved Astros and other teams.
Pick the favorite and get favorable odds. Without futures the math doesn't work. McIngvale was covered for the first $30 million in furniture refunds after placing a $3 million bet on the Astros to win it all. The grand announcement is that if the Astros win the World Series, you will get a free mattress if you spend more than $3000. The more furniture he sells through the promotion, the more McIngvale bets on the Astros to win the World Series.
McIngvale's idea to use sports gambling as a business hedge is something that has never been done before. Patrick Everson is a senior reporter for Vegas Insider. It's sort of a genius business move. He has the money to lose. He isn't losing any sleep.
Human nature is what McIngvale understands better than anything else. Even the smallest chance to get something for free is enough to get most consumers to buy something. McIngvale gets to do the thing he loves the most when sales increase: he flies off to Vegas to place huge bets. The briefcase gets its own seat on the plane, like in the movies, according to Gallery's Gerald McNeil, a former Pro Bowl returner with the Browns in the 1980s who now works with Mc Ingvale. After the first few trips to Vegas with McIngvale, he began keeping a change of clothes in his car. If the plane goes down, it's my job to keep the suitcase.
When he doesn't feel like going to Vegas, McIngvale will simply drive 125 miles east until the betting app on his phone tells him he's in Louisiana and he's free to take another million or five. The largest Super Bowl bet in history was dropped by McIngvale outside of a rest stop in Vinton, Louisiana, on the eve of the game. McIngvale returned double the customer's money on mattresses and furniture until July, when the Astros caught fire and the promotion exploded.
Linda McIngvale says that she sweated the games because of the promotions. I think he gets anxious about it. I believe he does and pretends that he doesn't.
McIngvale has a gambling problem. I have a promotion issue.
Both of them are probably correct.
McIngvale's losses are covered, thousands of ecstatic customers blab for years to everyone they know about that time they won the lottery, and many of them spend the refunds on more furniture.
McIngvale flew home from Vegas with a raggedy old Astros backpack of almost 50 pounds of sportsbooks' money after the Astros won the World Series.
It is when the team loses that McIngvale really wins. When the Braves beat the Astros in the World Series, McIngvale lost his $3.35 million bet. McIngvale tried to appeal to a higher power by packing a suite with nuns from the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province. The Rally Nuns lost to the Braves in a godforsaken Game 6.
It wasn't as bad of a loss as you might think. McIngvale got more than $35 million in free stuff. Assuming the promotion brought in around $30 million in sales, McIngvale says he came away with a cool profit. McIngvale says that the value of all the free advertising, promotion and goodwill is "exponential."
McIngvale says it's definitely a win-WIN. The promotions give us a lot of brand equity that we wouldn't have otherwise. Customers love it so they talk about it for a long time. It probably increases the number of people following the Astros because they have a vested interest in the team.
When McINGVALE was a panelist at a gambling conference and trade show in New Jersey this summer, Everson says he heard a few complaints from gamblers. It's unfair that McIngvale can place multimillion-dollar bets while the average person can't. This is an issue with sportsbooks policy, not McIngvale, and it's a lot like airline passengers who blame the economy on people in first class. The reason sportsbooks love McIngvale so much is that they get all the free promotion they can get out of him, and he's terrible at it.
McIngvale dropped over 15 million dollars on five teams in a row. He was about to be out another $5.5 million in the NCAA tournament until Kansas came back from 16 down to beat North Carolina. McIngvale went to Louisiana to bet another $1 million on the Jayhawks. He didn't want the wager to break his rules about not gambling with his heart. He said it was a stupid bet. When I go to Vegas, I see a lot of kids who know me from gambling. People think I'm a good one, but I'm not.
McIngvale brought Self to the store for the first day of the party. I asked the family how much they had won after they said thanks to Self. McIngvale put his hand on his head. Sixty-four thousand dollars. The number is sixty. There are four It's thousand. The thing knocked me over.
The Mattress Mack effect is one of the reasons the books love McIngvale. McIngvale's huge wagers on the Astros help defray the sportsbooks' liability on more popular teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, teams that are usually a loss for casinos. McIngvale dislikes the idea of limits. He thinks they should take larger bets. If someone comes in here and wants to spend a million dollars, it's like that. Yeah, well? Don't allow yourself to be knocked out. What is it that makes it different? The sportsbooks need to hedge it the other way, but they should have the know-how to do that. If they have the numbers right, they will get some big wins.
The math will keep people like Fuchs up at night until the Astros are eliminated. Although it's clear he gets kicked out of Mattress Mack, and the promotional mileage of his big bets, he doesn't root for the Astros. He says it will be fun to ride the roller coaster as they progress through the playoffs. Mack's hedge is beautiful. For everyone, it works out. Unless we lose 30 million.
McIngvale's Astros game attire is the best example of the inexplicable phenomenon that is mattress Mack. McIngvale wore his signature look: well-worn black cowboy boots, a slightly askew orange-billed Astros cap, blue business slacks and an authentic Alex when he arrived at the Astros game. McIngvale always wears his game jersey into his pants, which is the most egregious sports fashion crime of them all.
It does work on him.
$70 million in furniture as an accent piece is what it will take for that to happen. As long as the Astros keep winning, the number will keep climbing and the sportsbooks will keep taking his bets, according to McIngvale. McIngvale is close to several of the Astros, especially Bregman, who shares his passion for racehorses, and he insists the players get a kick out of his promotions and don't feel the least bit of pressure to helpremodel the living rooms of half of Houston.
Linda McIngvale says that if the Astros win it all it will be exciting for him and his customers. Mack loves doing this because he has a huge connection to the team. It's all good because the man works hard.
It takes McIngvale an hour to walk from home plate to right field. Section 122 erupts in a wave of applause when he reaches his seat about 10 rows back. The Astros hit three homers in four at bats to blow the game open in the sixth. "He's an icon, I love him, he's Mack to me, not Jim McIngvale," said Sehgal. He's an authentic fan with a big heart who puts a smile on your face.
McIngvale is a quirky curiosity in the world of mega-sports gambling. He remains a completely different person inside the city. Fans beam when they see Mattress Mack. Some people are yelling and walking to their seats. Others repeat his quirky catch phrase. He was asked if he's a ball player. Fans bend his ear for gambling advice on their favorite teams. The majority of people who stop do so to say "Thank you for everything you've done for this city" Go back to your old ways! Get those free mattresses!
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