Josh Allen beating out Lamar Jackson for MVP on Thursday night was a surprise to many NFL fans—but not, apparently, to a well-positioned whale on the futures contract betting site Polymarket.
Over the past week in general and Thursday in particular, one person on the offshore betting exchange spent his time bidding up the price of Allen to win the award, in the face of empirical evidence that suggested Jackson would be the likely winner. In just one hour on Thursday afternoon, the odds for Allen skyrocketed from 53 to 94 percent.
While Allen closed the regular season as the betting favorite to win MVP, the Polymarket odds shifted when it was revealed that Jackson won first-team All-Pro honors. The two awards are voted on by the same 50 AP voters, and the first-team All-Pro quarterback had gone on to win MVP for the last 11 years. The last time a quarterback beat out the first-team All-Pro QB to win MVP was John Elway in 1987, years before Allen or Jackson was born. Allen is just the third player in NFL history to win the award despite not being first-team All-Pro at his position.
Jackson received 30 first-team All-Pro votes, while Allen got 18 votes and the remaining two went to Joe Burrow. According to voting totals released Thursday night, 27 voters picked Allen as their MVP while 23 ranked Jackson first. Jackson had also won MVP votes from his fellow players and the Pro Football Writers of America. At Thursday night’s NFL Honors, Eagles running back Saquon Barkley won Offensive Player of the Year, with Jackson finishing second and Allen finishing sixth in voting.
On American sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings, NFL awards gambling odds closed weeks ago. However, Polymarket is an unregulated offshore exchange where peers are betting against each other as opposed to the house.
Over the course of the last month, the Polymarket whale is believed to have bet over $600,000 on Allen to win MVP as Jackson’s All-Pro nod gave him the edge. It’s not clear if the gambler had a supremely fortunate hunch, or somehow had inside information as to what the 50 AP voters collectively decided.
About $3 million total had been wagered on Allen to win MVP, according to the website, meaning the whale placed a fifth of all bets on the Bills QB.
The NFL, Associated Press, and Polymarket did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The AP released the full 50-voter panel on Thursday evening and disclosed how each voter ranked their top five candidates for MVP. Some key findings, according the Associated Press’s Josh Dubow:
- Nine voters picked Jackson for Offensive Player of the Year and then Allen for MVP.
- Jackson received 30 votes for first-team All-Pro and 23 voters ranked him first in MVP voting.
- Allen received 18 votes for first-team All-Pro and 27 voters ranked him first in MVP voting.
- Jim Miller of SiriusXM ranked Jackson fourth in MVP voting. Every other voter ranked him first or second. (Even if Miller ranked Jackson first, Allen would have won.)
It was not immediately clear which voters split their ballots.
