First Online Bet Results In $82,972 Kentucky Derby Score

Cinco de Mayo and Kentucky Derby weekend might mix well, but driving among all the celebration does not, so Kari Lee McEntee found herself looking for alternative ways to bet when she could not make it to the OTB on the First Saturday of May.

“My family and I celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Mexican food and the Derby with mint juleps,” said McEntee. “This year after some cocktails, we couldn’t drive to the OTB, so about an hour before the race I went on KentuckyDerby.com to figure out how to bet the Derby.”

Within minutes, McEntee had created a TwinSpires.com and funded it with $50. Thirty of those dollars went toward a trio of straight trifecta tickets based on names she liked: Irish War Cry with Classic Empire with Always Dreaming and McCraken with Irish War Cry with Classic Empire were two of the tickets.

The third ticket was the moneymaker, though, as Always Dreaming with Lookin At Lee with Battle of Midway connected for $82,972 on a $10 bet.

“My middle name is Lee, one of my husband’s favorite movies is about the Battle of Midway, and Always Dreaming is a horse I heard a lot of people talking about, so that’s why I played that ticket,” McEntee said.

However, because of the aforementioned cocktails portion of the celebration, McEntee and her husband didn’t even stay awake to see the race live, and it was not until the next morning that she realized she had made a life-changing score.

“I woke up at 4 a.m. to use the bathroom and remembered we had bet the Derby,” McEntee said. “I went online to see if we won, and when I saw five figures in my account I couldn’t believe it. I asked my husband, and he said, ‘It’s 4 a.m.; I can’t see through blurred eyes either.’”

The number was real, though, and McEntee made $62,232 on her trifecta bet after automatic withholding. She said she would use the money to be debt free, get a new roof for a house in Rochester, and save the rest for a future vacation.

Oh, and one other thing: She plans to take her family of 16 out to dinner this weekend in Saratoga Springs.

“This is a huge blessing,” said McEntee, who in addition to watching the Derby each year, takes a family trip to Saratoga Race Course. Other than those two days, though, there is not a lot of other racing in McEntee’s life, and she doesn’t know if she’ll even play the Preakness yet.

“I have beginner’s luck,” McEntee said. “Every time I go to a casino for the first time I win, but then I’m not so lucky. I guess I have beginner’s luck online too.”