Young Gambler Came So Close to Turning $13 Into $270K

The Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 Tuesday night, crushing the Canadian team's hopes of winning its first Stanley Cup in decades—and 24-year-old Drew Hirschman's hopes of winning $270,000 on a $13 bet. His longshot five-game DraftKings parley involved championship wins for five teams, including the Oilers, NBC News reports. His chances of winning looked good after the New York Liberty won the WNBA title, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series, and the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl. The fifth team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, could clinch the NBA title with a win Wednesday night.

"It definitely wasn't the best feeling last night," Hirschman tells NBC. But with help from his dad, he still came out ahead with $50,000 in hedge bets that delivered $75,000 in profit. "I'm very lucky to have a good support system," Hirschman told the New York Post last week. "My dad is an actuary, he's a math guy, he knows what he's doing here. We put together (a plan) that) we thought is secure that will give us a good outcome. He's definitely been very helpful with the funds here as well. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I have over 50 grand to splash."

Hirschman recently graduated from Binghamton University in upstate New York with a degree in computer engineering. He plans to work in that field but the attention his bet attracted—DraftKings flew him and his family to games in recent weeks—may have opened up other opportunities. "I obviously, went to school for engineering," he tells NBC. "But I've had some interesting talks with people about potentially getting into sports and gambling. But even if I go into that, I still have a passion for engineering." (More sports betting stories.)