Federal authorities in Florida on Wednesday charged a 23-year-old sports bettor known as ‘Parlay Patz’ with transmitting threats of violence directed at professional and collegiate athletes and their friends and families.
The complaint also says that after Patz bet $10,000 on the Rams to win the Super Bowl, and they lost to the New England Patriots, Patz sent a direct message to a Patriots player with the initials. He bet $90 on Floyd Mayweather beating Manny Pacquiao but ended up losing the money. He also won $75,000 from a 12 team parlay but only got $12,000 of it because it was on an illegal offshore site. Patz incredible run started when he bet $19,000 on the Green Bay Packers moneyline and they won.
A New York sports bettor known as “Parlay Patz” faces charges for threatening athletes who have the ability to impact his bets. The criminal complaint, which was filed Feb. 24 in Florida by FBI Special Agent Daniel Nowak, alleges that Benjamin Tucker Patz used anonymous social media accounts to threaten NFL, MLB, college basketball and college football players, as well as their friends. According to ActionNetwork.com (which features Patz’s bets), the amateur gambler collected nearly $700,000 in just three weeks from parlay bets. The run for Patz started when he hit a 15-leg parlay for $237,000. The total cost for this parlay? Patz followed this up with a 13-leg parlay that paid out $326,000 and cost him a total of $7,000. Parlay travy instagram. Home; ABOUT; Contact.
According to the criminal complaint, Benjamin Tucker Patz of New York used multiple anonymous accounts on social media in 2019 to make threats against athletes, including members of the New England Patriots, several Major League Baseball teams and multiple college basketball and football players. Some of the threats contained derogatory terms and racial slurs.
Patz is charged with transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in federal prison.
Patz did not immediately respond to phone and email messages from ESPN.
On March 9, 2019, Patz allegedly sent four Instagram direct messages to an unidentified Pepperdine basketball player, stating, ‘Your throat will be severed open with a dull knife,’ ‘Your entire family will be beheaded and burned alive,’ ‘I will enter your home as you sleep and kill you’ and ‘Watch your back, you’re a dead man walking.’
In an affidavit, FBI Special Agent Daniel Nowak said the Instagram account behind the threats to the Pepperdine player was registered with an email address linked to Patz. The criminal complaint identifies similar threats made on Instagram against a college basketball player for Arizona, players for the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays, and the girlfriend of an Atlanta Braves player.
Parlay Patz Twitter
The complaint claims that approximately 18 messages were sent from the Instagram account @parlaypatz to college and professional football and basketball players. More than 300 more threatening messages were directed at players from anonymous accounts that authorities believe are linked to Patz.
‘Your worthlessness costed me over 100,000$ tonight! Sad!’ a Dec. 22, 2019, message from @parlaypatz to a college basketball player for Arizona said. Arizona lost to St. John’s 70–67 the previous night.
Citing betting records from bookmaker William Hill, investigators allege that Patz placed a parlay wager on July 25, 2019, on the Cleveland Indians, four other MLB teams and a professional tennis player. Roughly 45 minutes before the Indians played Kansas City, a Royals player received two direct messages on Instagram, stating, ‘I will cut open the throat of your baby’ and ‘You will die.’
On Feb. 3, 2019, according to the complaint, Patz posted a screenshot of a $10,000 bet on the Los Angeles Rams against the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII. On the same day, the complaint states that multiple players for the Patriots received direct messages on Instagram threatening to ‘rape’ and ‘murder’ family members.
‘His substantial and persistent online sports wagering suggests that Patz may have threatened athletes who played in games on which he had unsuccessfully wagered and lost money,’ Nowak said in his affidavit, ‘or that he may have tried to influence the outcome of upcoming sports events on which he had wagered.’
U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Amy Filjones said Patz was charged in the Middle District of Florida because the Rays players were there when he allegedly made threats to them after they lost a home game to the White Sox in July.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Patz would face charges in other districts for the other threats. He had arranged to turn himself in but wasn’t yet in custody Wednesday evening, Filjones said. It wasn’t known if he had an attorney.
‘The safety of our players and staff is paramount and all threats are taken seriously,’ Rays spokesman Dave Haller said in a statement. ‘The Rays and the players involved are cooperating with the FBI as the legal process continues.’
Patz gained notoriety in the sports betting community and was profiled in the media after he reportedly won multiple high-dollar parlay bets, leading to the ‘Parlay Patz’ nickname. His @parlaypatz Instagram account was still up Wednesday, including posts about his winning more than $333,000 on 13-team parlay in November.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Ben “Parlay Patz” Patz was born in 1996 and began wagering on sporting events as soon as legally possible. Once he became eighteen, he joined an offshore sportsbook and started placing bets on games. Due to his enormous success with parlay betting, his buddies gave him the nickname “Parlay Patz.” His first legal wager was on a Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fight for $90. From there he ended up bankrolling on numerous bets and took his money to Europe where he quit the betting game. During his time in France, he attended the American University of Paris. After over a year in Paris, he returned to the US and began placing wagers again. This time, he was unlucky and lost all the remaining savings he had from his first stint as a successful sports bettor.
Parlay Patz Bets Odds
But this blow to his bank account didn’t stop him from continuing to place bets. He went on to win a 12-game parlay with a $75,000 payout. The offshore sportsbook used was not a licensed and regulated establishment and refused to pay Patz his winnings. They instead paid him $12,000 of the $75,000. Due to it being an illegal operation there was no form of recourse to be done for him to try and receive the entire pot. After this experience, he went on to be very cautious whenever he decided to bet at all. The repeal of PASPA played a huge part in Patz’s full return to the world of sports wagers. Being a resident of New York, Patz has to drive over the bridge into New Jersey territory where he is able to access their legal mobile sports betting platform. Once he’s officially in the neighboring state, he parks in a grocery store parking lot where he opens up his sportsbook account and places his bets. His two favorite sports to wager on are football and basketball, both collegiate and professional teams.
Legal Issues Surrounding Parlay Patz
In late February 2020, Patz was charged with threatening violent acts against athletes. In the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Patz was charged by attorney Maria Chapa Lopez. He is being charged with violating code 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) or transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce.
Parlay Patz Bets Bet
While the investigation is only in the beginning stages, Patz was allegedly threatening players through social media under multiple burner accounts. Threats included killing players and their families with dull knives, beheading them, and killing them while they slept. Some notes regarding the legal issues for Parlay Patz:
- Daniel A. Nowak investigated the case.
- The first known threat came in March 2019 to a Pepperdine University basketball player.
- Patz’s account was reported to Facebook the following day.
- The threats continued on July 4 to a Toronto Blue Jays player on Instagram.
- A Tampa Bay Rays player received a threat on July 20th.
- On the same day, Patz threatened an Atlanta Braves players’ girlfriend through Instagram.
- On July 27, a different Braves player received Instagram threats.
- The following day, an Oakland Athletics player received five threats that increased in violence.
- To close the month, a San Diego Padres player and his wife received threats from Patz.
- In August, a subpoena was issued for the three Instagram accounts.
- In September, Judge Amanda Sansone issued search warrants for Patz’s linked email accounts.
- It was discovered that 307 accounts had received threatening messages from Patz.
- In December, Judge Sansone issued a search warrant for a different email account.
- To begin 2020, Judge Sansone issued a search warrant for Patz’s Instagram account.
- Another 18 messages were found to be sent to various college and professional athletes
- FBI Special Agent Nowak issued a warrant for his arrest on February 24 2020.
- On March 6, Patz posted a $100,000 bail bond and returned to California.
How Can Parlay Patz Afford To Place Such Large Wagers?
The 23-year-old sports bettor not only went to the American University of Paris for a while, but he also attended Columbia’s business school. He became the chairman and co-founder of a business called Lakeworth Holdings. This company is an international investment company based out of New York. They focus on helping clients with technology and energy domain work. Presently, they have 15 companies that they operate globally. It is with this income that Parlay Patz can wager on sports betting in the way that he does, making bigger bets. However, now that he’s found the proper method to his madness, real money sports betting could become his full-time job.
Parlay Patz & His Comeback To Sports Betting
After becoming a mobile sports bettor in the state of New Jersey, Patz lost out on a seven-team parlay with college basketball that cost him $30,000. It was only after a win on a single game bet that raked in $19,000 for the Green Bay Packers did Patz come to a realization about his sports betting strategy. Once he developed a strategy for his legal sports betting that wasn’t just about the statistical data for each team, he has skyrocketed into fame. He is winning his parlays left and right, almost calling it too easy at this point.
Parlay Patz Bets Picks
The Parlay King Is Born
His new winning strategy was changed in terms of betting the spread as he normally would. Once he realized teams didn’t care whether or not they made a certain number of points and cared more about winning the game, he began to place money on the moneyline. His moneyline parlay strategy has catapulted him into the limelight. In three weeks’, he won $672,000 on four separate parlay wagers. The biggest payout and longest of those bets was a $7,000, 13-game parlay that resulted in a $333,000 payout. His fifth parlay bet weeks later consisted of an eight-game parlay wager. His winnings on that came to the sum of $183,892. The very next day, he put in a parlay for five games worth $25,000. Again, he employed the method of moneyline parlaying. The wager won Patz $116,260. Six parlay wagers in less than two months have allowed Parlay Patz to win a total of $972,152. It’s safe to say that Parlay Patz is making a patsy out of sportsbooks as his hot streak with his new method will get him over the million-dollar mark as soon as he wagers next and the hot streak continues.
The Future of Parlay Patz
After coming to his successful parlay strategy of sticking strictly to moneyline wagers, Parlay Patz won over a million dollars in less than forty days. This skyrocketed him to make headlines in the betting world. Like many of the other famous sports bettors Patz was treating himself to private plane charters for vacations and other gifts with the money he’s earned through his parlays.
All that has come crashing down around Patz now after being exposed for making death threats to college athletes. In Patz bravado and brilliance, he flew too close to the sun and got too big for his own good. In no way is making death threats to people acceptable, regardless of how much money you might have lost. Patz has a lot of growing up to do if he wants to get back into the good graces of the public, and he might have plenty of time to think about his next bet.
Parlay Patz Bets Against
Parlay Pats Problem Gambling
One of the darker sides of the gambling world is problem gambling and this can manifest in a number of ways. For some, it could be betting more money than you actually have like betting on credit too often. For others, like Parlay Patz case, it could be threatening and harassing athletes because your bets lose from time to time. It’s important to recognize that sports betting involves risk and there is always the chance your bet can lose. It’s part of the game. However, Parlay Patz had to learn the hard way that not every bet he places is going to win him millions, and harassing athletes won’t win him that money back. Parlays have the lowest winning percentage in sports betting also, so parlays have to be viewed as higher risks when betting on sports.
