Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has once again tied a major sports wager to a customer promotion at his Gallery Furniture business, this time placing a $516,000 position through prediction market platform Kalshi on the Houston Astros to win the World Series.
The Houston businessman said the position could return $13 million if the Astros capture baseball’s championship, with the wager serving as a hedge against a sales campaign that promises refunds to qualifying customers should the team complete a title-winning run.
Gallery Furniture has been advertising the offer for roughly two months. Under the promotion, customers who spend at least $4,000 can receive a refund if Houston wins the World Series. McIngvale said the campaign has already generated substantial exposure for the retailer.
“Well, we’ve been running the promotion for a while, so we have some built-up liability already,” Mack told The New York Post. “Baseball is a very random game, and the Astros have more home runs than anybody.”
According to McIngvale, Gallery Furniture currently faces approximately $4 million in liability tied to the promotion. He estimates that figure could increase significantly if Houston advances deeper into the postseason.
“We already have $4 million in liability on the promotion,” Mack revealed. “We’re projected around $12 million in liability if they keep going and get on a roll; they’ve done it before, we’re happy to jump on the ride and bring our customers with them.”
Kalshi Offers Alternative to Traditional Sportsbooks
The wager marks the first time McIngvale has publicly disclosed using a prediction market platform to hedge one of his promotional campaigns. In previous years, he typically relied on traditional sportsbooks to place six- and seven-figure bets linked to Gallery Furniture offers.
One factor behind the move was pricing. McIngvale said he sought longer odds than those available from conventional sportsbooks after the Astros secured a playoff berth.
“I’ve been aware of Kalshi and made a few wagers on them before. I had a price in mind for the hedge, and the sportsbooks were about 18/1 after they clinched, and I wanted to get higher than that,” Mack added. “I talked to Kalshi, and they connected me with these market maker guys, and they got me the price of 24/1.”
Kalshi’s availability in Texas also removed the need for McIngvale to travel to another jurisdiction to place the position. Sports betting remains unavailable in Texas, where attempts to legalize the activity have repeatedly fallen short since the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. Any expansion of gambling in the state would require a constitutional amendment.
Nicolas Hull, Kalshi’s Director of Business Development, said the exchange structure helped secure favorable pricing.
“Mattress Mack has been hedging sports outcomes longer than almost anyone in business. By using Kalshi, he got a better price than his other options,” Hull said. “That’s the advantage of an exchange, where price discovery happens through competition. When counterparties compete, the cost of hedging comes down and business owners get a better deal.”
Promotion Continues a Long-Running Strategy
McIngvale has built a reputation for linking large wagers to customer promotions. The approach gained national attention in 2022 when the Astros won the World Series and he collected what was widely reported as the largest legal sports betting payout in U.S. history.
That year, his winnings totaled an estimated $75 million from approximately $10 million in bets placed at average odds of 7.5-to-1. McIngvale said Gallery Furniture subsequently refunded $74 million to customers.
“The last time the Astros won, we gave back $74 million,” Mack remembered. “Some people got refunded $70,000 back. We pay them back mostly by check or credit card. Most of the time it’s a hedge, but we might come back $500,000 or a million ahead, but we might get killed by the credit card fees. As you know, when a local team is involved, that’s what it’s all about mentally, in a challenging retail environment.”
He added that customer interest remains a major reason for continuing the promotions.
“It’s very popular with our customers, so we want to have our bases covered. We’ve been marketing for the last two months,” he said. “But it was iffy because we weren’t sure if they were going to do it or not.”
McIngvale has also wagered heavily on other Houston and Texas teams over the years, including college basketball and football programs, as well as high-profile Super Bowl outcomes. He said he may consider future promotions connected to Texas college football teams reaching the playoffs.
Prediction Markets Face Growing Attention
McIngvale’s Astros position arrives during a period of rapid growth for prediction markets. According to Pew Research Center data, combined monthly trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose from $26 billion in May to $53 billion in July 2026. Sports became the most actively traded category on both platforms during that period.
The growth has also attracted regulatory attention. A recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit determined that Kalshi’s sports-event contracts are subject to Tennessee sports wagering laws, reversing an earlier lower-court decision. The case centered on Kalshi’s offering of sports-event contracts in Tennessee without registration through the state’s sports wagering framework.
McIngvale appeared unfazed by broader debates surrounding prediction markets and traditional sportsbooks. “I can whine about my competition, or I can put on my big boy britches and go out there and beat ‘em,” he remarked.
For now, the outcome of both the promotion and the hedge remains tied to Houston’s postseason performance. While the Astros reached the playoffs as AL West champions, they opened the Wild Card round against the Chicago White Sox with a Game 1 defeat, leaving McIngvale’s latest high-profile wager dependent on a lengthy postseason recovery.