People really flushed their money down the toilet on Will Levis because of a Reddit post

Draft season always gets dumb, but on Tuesday it became hilariously stupid. When everyone went to bed on Monday the top pick of the draft was more or less settled. Every sign pointed to the Carolina Panthers selecting Bryce Young, with a very slender chance that C.J. Stroud could be the top pick.

Then, when everyone woke up, it was anarchy.

Suddenly Levis was a trending topic. Everyone was losing it, assuming something monumental had shifted and Las Vegas “learned” that Levis was going to be the pick. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t how sports betting works, but group think took over to such a degree that for a few hours the football world became convinced that the Panthers were going to stun everyone by taking Levis, a player many assume will be the third or fourth quarterback off the board.

Just one problem: The whole thing started from the most hilarious source imaginable — a random Reddit post, written by a user who claimed they had extensive inside knowledge of the No. 1 pick in the draft. This is information only the smallest handful of people would know, but it was enough to move the market.

The post from “u/SaleAgreeable2834” on r/sportsbook remains the top post in the subreddit. Over 1,000 people have commented, many of whom posting that they went and put money on Levis being the No. 1 pick thanks to this post. A huge influx of bets led to sportsbooks temporarily ceasing prop bets on the top pick, which poured fuel on the fire of people who were now convinced that Reddit had beaten Vegas like this was WallStreetBets all over again.

There is no history of this poster making any correct predictions other than saying “trust me,” and when pressed they claimed they also told the sub that Baker Mayfield was going to be the No. 1 pick back in 2018, but conveniently uses different burner accounts when they get “real info.” The poster never linked to his supposed correct Mayfield prediction.

Regardless of what happened with the money at sportsbooks, NFL writers and draft gurus met this with unparalleled skepticism. Nothing about Levis at No. 1 made sense anymore. Sure, at some point in the process he was probably in discussion, but talk of all other quarterbacks has been eclipsed by an unwavering belief that Young was going to be the pick.

Josh Norris of Underdog Fantasy noticed that along with u/SaleAgreeable2834’s bold proclamation that Levis was going No. 1, he also spent time overnight on “r/MarkMyWords” informing people that Barry Keoghan was being replaced as The Joker in the next Batman movie. It’s incredible to have intimate knowledge of both NFL draft secrets AND Hollywood casting, but random folks on Reddit have that power.

By early afternoon the books had reopened, and betting had stabilized. As of writing Bryce Young is the runaway favorite at -1000, with Levis sitting in second at +500 — dropping a little from the fever pitch. DraftKings told ESPN that all the action they were seeing at Levis No. 1 wasn’t a result of a few large bets (which you’d expect if someone really knew), but rather hundreds of smaller ones, which they believe all originated as a result of the post.

“Given the nature of the draft, we drastically cut the price based on this action and eventually came to a price where the bets stopped,” a DraftKings spokesperson told ESPN. “We are still seeing some small bets trickle through at the current price, but the speculation is all the action was off the back of a Reddit post.”

The possibility of Levis being the top pick was so unthinkable that last week BetMGM took Levis off their possible prop bets all together. Today he was added back in, and immediately shot to 5-1.

Why would someone do this? Perhaps they wanted to try and manipulate Young’s odds and get a bet in when he dropped. Maybe they were just trolling? Either way, there remains no evidence beyond one random post that Levis will be taken No. 1 overall, and come Friday morning there are going to be a lot of people who flushed money down the toilet based on this advice.