Why Skills-First Leadership Is Replacing the Ivy League Playbook in the C-Suite
05/23/2025
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The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
November 2, 2022: Jim McIngvale, the Texas furniture salesman hedging sports bets with furniture promotions, said he had placed a total of $10 million on his beloved Houston Astros in the World Series. And if he did, the payout would be a great $75 million.
“Winning the bet is necessary, but more importantly, winning the bets permits us to provide money back to all of the customers who bought regarding $75 million of furniture,” McIngvale stated.
Game 1 amid the Astros and the underdog Philadelphia Phillies is scheduled for Friday evening. “The excitement is the actual here in Houston,” he said.
McIngvale, aged 71, is the owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston. As part of a marketing campaign, he offers his customers a special promotion around important sporting events. If you spend $3,000 or over on a mattress, your buying is free if the Astros win.
“If the bet, then I’ll be getting the $10 million in capital back that I supported, so I don’t have costs in the promotion,” he added. “And if the Phillies win, then I’m over the $10 million, so I have a made an interest in this either way, but my actual interest is in ensuring the customers win,” he added.
“This would be the largest payout in the history of any sports bet, anytime, anywhere,” Ken Fuchs, Caesars’ head of sportsbook. Mack placed the biggest World Series bets, $3 million, on May 13, with Caesars at 10-1 on the Astros to defeat.
McIngvale said he works with Caesars and Sealy Mattress and is providing new mattresses to recent responders, military veterans, and active-duty military members in Houston and Philadelphia to celebrate his historic bet and return to the local communities.
He said that his World Series bets had taken him around the country, as sports gambling is illegal in his home state of Texas.
“I don’t think Texas will legalize sports or casino betting during my lifetime, but it happens. But currently, going to Louisiana is not that of an imposition; going to Iowa and then finding Las Vegas all night long, that’s a little any other story,” he added.
In 2017, when the Astros won the World Series, Mack doled millions in giving back the money. He lost over $9 million this year when the Los Angeles Rams overcame the Cincinnati Bengals in the Bowl.
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